


The Nakadia Job

by skitzofreak



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebellion Era - All Media Types
Genre: Background Relationships, F/M, Mission Fic, Rated for swearing, Spy Stuff, alternate universe - everybody lives/nobody dies, inspired by an episode of Leverage, rating will change later, vaguely established relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-31
Updated: 2018-06-01
Packaged: 2019-02-25 21:29:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 24,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13221618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skitzofreak/pseuds/skitzofreak
Summary: “Hello,” Jyn’s voice was suddenly loud in the earpiece, amplified by the microphones of the podium. She sounded strange to Bodhi’s ears, her Core-world accent crisp and light, and it took a moment for him to realize that she was smiling brightly at the reporters and their holoimagers as she leaned up against Julan’s side. “My name is Nomi Williams, and, well, we were trying to keep this a secret, but as Julan’s grandmother always said, “The truth is a light, and it must shine.””“Nice touch,” Chirrut chuckled approvingly.Jyn’s smile was almost blinding now as she tilted her head towards the flabbergasted Julan and announced, “We’re getting married!”“What?” Bodhi yelped.“What?” Cassian asked, appearing on the balcony overhead.-The Rogues are sent to overthrow a brutal dictator with an iron grip on all the system’s slavers, smugglers, various unsavory criminals, and worst of all,politicians.Let’s go steal a planet.





	1. Let's go steal a planet

**Author's Note:**

> Happy New Year! It seems like a good time to start a new fic, since I'm just finishing up two others. This one is inspired by the tv show [Leverage](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leverage_\(TV_series\)), specifically the episode [The San Lorenzo Job](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1769995/), although I diverge from that plotline a lot. This is largely an excuse to write the Rogues on a spy mission/heist/complex con for the Rebellion.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Governor’s Palace, City of Quarrom, Nakadia, Mid-Rim]

 

The heavy smack of flesh on flesh echoes through the posh office of Ambassador Tichinde Bonu, followed by the tinkling of broken glasses and the thud of a body hitting the richly carpeted floor. “You fucking rebel scumbag!” Tichinde’s voice screeches into an even higher register than normal, cracking with rage.  “ _Me cago en tu alma!_ ”

On the floor, the target of the ambassador’s fury coughs and pushes himself slowly up onto his hands and knees, blinking against the stream of blood dripping down into his eyes. “ _Si puedes encontrarla,”_ he grunts, a twisted parody of a smile warping his battered face into a frightening grimace.

“That’s enough Bonu, please, that rug was expensive.” The third man in the room, dressed neatly in a well-tailored Imperial uniform, shakes his dark head at the pale-faced ambassador reprovingly and delicately adjusts his captain’s rank. “And that was quite a nice wine set you’ve destroyed. Really, my friend. _Temper._ ”

The pallid ambassador kicks one last time at the downed man’s gut, knocking him back to the floor, then reluctantly stalks away towards the tall, beautifully framed window. “Kriffing piece of dogshit!” he spits over his shoulder, then turning to peer out the window anxiously.

The Imperial officer smiles at the man on the floor, the same charming expression that has won him many admirers on Nakadia, and throughout the Imperial command structure as a whole. “Tell me, Mister Sward,” Governor Rogen Derrosk fastidiously wipes a spot of blood from his handsome face, “did you really think you could pull it off?”

“Honestly?” Cassian takes vindictive pleasure in spitting a wad of phlegm and blood directly onto Derrosk’s shining shoes, “We didn’t have a chance in hell.”

 

\--

 

[one standard month earlier, aboard light cruiser _The Fortune_ ]

 

“This is unbelievable,” Bodhi said loudly, staring at his datapad incredulously. “Have any of you read this?” He waved the datapad at the rest of the table.

“Not yet,” Chirrut answered cheerfully. “But it is on my To Do list.”

“Hah hah,” Bodhi said in a monotone. “Seriously, Jyn? Baze? Have you seen this mission brief?”

“Seen it,” Baze grunted, not looking up from the old hand blaster he was carefully dismantling. He and Jyn had picked the ancient weapon up from a junk merchant two days ago, and he was apparently convinced that he could make the thing serviceable again. By Bodhi’s count, Baze had taken it apart and put it back together again at least four times, and it still didn’t so much as spark. Everybody needed a hobby, he supposed.

“And?” Bodhi demanded impatiently when it seemed like Baze was done talking. The former Guardian carefully bent what looked like a metal hairpin into a new shape and shrugged one broad shoulder.  Bodhi rolled his eyes.

“I take it we have been asked to perform some great task in service of the Alliance?” Chirrut tapped his staff softly against the deck of the cruiser’s common area, face thoughtful.

“We’ve been asked to perform some suicidal, idiotic, completely unrealistic task in service of some fool’s pipe-dream,” Bodhi snapped, turning and glaring at Jyn. “Did you read this? Did _Cassian_ read this?”

Jyn at least had the curtesy to glance up at Bodhi from where she hunkered over a long row of wicked-looking blades, carefully sharpening them with some sort of glowing whetstone. “I read it,” she said quietly, then scraped the whetstone along a curved black blade as long as Bodhi’s hand with a sharp, ringing sound. He glared at her until she sighed and with a practiced flick of her wrist, made the blade vanish somewhere into her sleeve. “I don’t like it much either.”

“Of course not. Because _you_ are sane and _this_ is crazy nonsense,” Bodhi said firmly, then stood and held the datapad up as if to present it to the galaxy, Exhibit A, Crazy Nonsense. “Observe,” he announced, as if to a crowd, “For a limited time only, this masterwork of Bad Ideas, compliments of Some Fool, the Rebel Alliance, in the Year of Our Maker 3278.”

“I see Bodhi has read his mission brief,” Cassian said dryly from the door, pulling down his scarf from his face and brushing a thick crust of reddish dust from his coat and hair. Behind him, K2SO loomed through the doorway, a large crate marked “perishables” in his arms. The droid stomped past the common space and through the doorway that led down to the cargo hold without a word, the red dust so thick on his chassis that his normal black paint was almost completely obscured.  “Oil bath,” Cassian muttered in answer to Jyn’s amused smirk.

“The dust on this pointlessly inhabited moon is highly corrosive to my joints,” Kay’s voice was even more irritable than usual, and he creaked slightly as he moved. “Next time we need supplies, I recommend we set down at one of the fifty-seven other viable locations in this system.” The droid jabbed a dusty metal hand at the cargo door controls and even though he stood as still as a statue, he managed to give the impression of tapping his foot as the door rumbled open.

“Red is a good color for you,” Jyn called after the droid as he clumped down into the cargo bay.

“It really brings out the color of his eyes,” Chirrut agreed pleasantly. Jyn’s smirk widened, Cassian sighed, and K2SO responded with the mechanized version of a disgruntled _harumph_ as he trudged out of sight.

Bodhi felt they were getting off topic. “Tell me you did not agree to this,” he flapped the datapad at Cassian, then frowned at the piles of red dust gathering at his captain’s feet. “And don’t let that get into the ventilation system.”

Cassian scrubbed a hand over his face, dislodging a small shower of red dust from his scruffy beard and making a faint grimace of distaste, pressing his lips together. He nodded at Bodhi absently, then moved to take the bottle of water Jyn held up. “I have not agreed to anything,” he said, taking a long drink from the bottle and then spitting into the nearby sink. The water came out reddish; he probably had a lot of grit in his mouth, too. “But it’s not exactly a request, Bodhi.”

“Pretty sure it is,” Bodhi protested, at the same that Jyn snorted “bantha shit,” from over her knives.

Cassian rinsed and spit again, then pulled the filthy coat from his shoulders and shoved it in the laundry chute in the wall. He thumped back against the wall next to Jyn’s seat, grimacing in mild apology as she swept her knives off the table and away from the cloud of floating dust that drifted off his clothes. Jyn cradled the blades to her chest and tilted her head back to meet Cassian’s gaze.

Bodhi opened his mouth to follow up on the whole “not a request” argument, then shut it with a mental sigh. Cassian and Jyn were sharing one of those _looks_ , the kind that seemed to have a whole conversation folded somewhere inside it where no one else could hear, and Bodhi always felt like an awkward intruder when he tried to talk to them while they were like that.

Baze, of course, did not share the sentiment. “Discretionary,” he said loudly into the small silence, and Cassian turned reluctantly from Jyn’s eyes to look at the mercenary.

“Yes,” the captain admitted heavily. “It is marked discretionary.”

“So we can turn it down,” Bodhi supplied helpfully. “That’s the _definition_ of a request, I’ll have you know.”

“Now I’m starting to feel very curious,” Chirrut hummed. “Have we been commissioned to assassinate the Emperor?”

Baze grunted something that sounded suspiciously like a rusty laugh. “No.”

“Rob the Imperial Treasury?”

Jyn huffed a soft laugh, “I’m in.”

“No,” Cassian told her, only half joking.

Chirrut tapped his staff again meditatively. “Steal a Star Destroyer,” he guessed. “I admit I’ve always wanted to try that.”

“No,” Baze said firmly.

“We’d have better luck stealing Darth kriffing Vader’s personal Destroyer than doing _this_ objective,” Bodhi huffed with exasperation.

“I do love a good riddle,” Chirrut chuckled. “But at this point, I think I would like a hint.”

“The Alliance wants us to take down Rogen Derrosk,” Jyn told him flatly, and Bodhi noted with mild dismay that the knives in her hands were all mysteriously gone and he hadn’t even seen her put them away. Honestly, where did that woman keep them all? Undressing must be like Rodian Roulette for her. Inanely, Bodhi reflected that Cassian was a very brave man, and then immediately scolded himself for being terrible.

“Ah, now it is all clear. Truly, a dreadful idea.” Chirrut’s voice immediately turned grave, his voice solemn. He folded his hands around his staff and bowed his head. “We shall surely all perish.”

“You know who that is?” Baze squinted at him.

“Not at all.”

“Rogen Derrosk,” Cassian said calmly, sipping at his water bottle again, “the current Imperial Governor of the planet Nakadia, in the Mid-Rim. By all accounts, he is a very clever, dangerous man. He came into power two years ago, and Intel believes he has kept the _peace,_ ” Cassian sneered around that word, like it left a particularly bad taste in his mouth, “through lies, bribes, and powerful ties with the criminal underworld in the system.”

“He runs the local gangs,” Jyn clarified. “All three of them.”

“Sounds a pleasant fellow,” Chirrut murmured.

“Slavers,” Bodhi burst out, almost vibrating with nervous energy and indignation, because no one seemed to be taking this _seriously_. “He runs the local _slavers_ , who, who by the way, sell to the Imperials, which makes him extra, you know, _extra_ valuable to his chain of command. And he runs the smugglers, and he’s got, I don’t know, _dozens_ of protection rackets going, and, and…” he trailed off, frustration thickening his tongue and bringing back the stammer he had been working so hard to overcome after Bor Gullet. Bodhi shook his head hard, and then shook the datapad like he could jiggle the information right out of it and onto the floor as proof. “He is a horrible, dangerous man, and, and everyone who has ever screwed with him has ended up dead or _worse,_ and it would be one thing if Alliance command was asking us to assassinate him from a distance,” he shot a guilty look at Cassian, who merely nodded because he was a lot better at dealing with things than Bodhi would ever be, “but they’re asking us to take apart his whole, you know, his whole operation.” Bodhi slumped down into the empty chair next to Jyn and slapped the datapad down on the table in disgust.

“If I just killed him,” Cassian said gently, “someone else would simply fill the void.”

Bodhi wrinkled his nose at Cassian and then looked pointedly at Jyn, who met his gaze with a grimace. _“If **I** just killed him.”_ _He’s taking all the blame again_. Her slight scowl told him that she heard it too. Ten months of working together, Bodhi thought sadly, and Cassian still tried to keep all the ugly parts of the war for himself, like he believed he could shield them all from the blood if only he tried hard enough.

“Why Nakadia?” Baze asked, snapping the last piece of the old blaster together and holding it out to Cassian for inspection. Cassian took it from Baze’s gloved hand and held it up, weighing it in his palm and then sighting along the barrel.

“Plastics,” Jyn said.

“Nakadian soil has a unique chemical composition that makes it excellent for many kinds of crops,” Cassian expanded, flipping the blaster in his hand and examining the…bottom of the blaster, whatever it was called.  Bodhi and basters had a firm nodding acquaintance only.  “But it’s also excellent for making armor-grade synthetic materials. There are several very profitable factories making stormtrooper armor and similar polymer resins.”

Jyn rolled her eyes at Bodhi. “Plastics,” she repeated.

“The sights are good,” Cassian handed the blaster back to Baze. “But the firing mechanism feels loose still. If it fires, it will probably pull hard right.” He paused, then gave Baze a slightly apologetic look. “And explode.”

Baze gave the blaster a hard glare as if trying to cow it into submission, then plucked it from Cassian’s hand and started to pick it apart again with a wordless grumble.

  “So in order to properly depose this foul villain,” Chirrut summarized, reaching absently to rest a soothing hand on Baze’s shoulder, “We will have to undermine his relationship with the slavers, smugglers, and various ruffians of the system, destroy his business and good standing with the Imperial fleet, sabotage several high-value industrial targets, and then remove him permanently from any possible position of retaliation?”

“Now you see the problem,” Bodhi snapped, blinked, added, “Um, you know, so to speak.”

“I have a good visual on it, yes,” Chirrut smiled in his direction.

“And if we fail, there’s a good chance we all die, or get sold on the block, or, or some other horrible fate,” Bodhi turned to glare at Cassian. “Does that about cover it?”

Cassian sighed softly. “He might also torture us to get intel on the rebellion.”

A brief silence broken only by the clicking of blaster pieces coming apart in Baze’s hands filled the common area. Then Chirrut leaned his staff against his shoulder and clapped his palms together in front of his face. “The Force is with us, and we are one with the Force,” he announced loudly, and bowed his head briefly against his hands as if praying. Then he leaned back and propped one foot casually against his opposite knee and said, “Sounds like quite the operation, Captain. When do we leave?”

“We are not going anywhere without complete agreement from everyone,” Cassian replied instantly, although he was looking down at Jyn’s bent head. Jyn glanced aside at Bodhi again, and it was his turn to grimace in understanding. He hadn’t missed the faint stress on the word “we” either; Cassian had clearly already decided to take the job, and he would go whether he had backup or not. _One of these days_ , Bodhi thought in exasperation, _that man’s selflessness is going to be the death of me._ From the dark look in Jyn’s eyes, she was thinking along the same lines.

“We could use a little exercise,” Chirrut said, nudging Baze’s ribs with the end of his staff. “We’ve been getting soft lately. Too much time sitting around _Home I_.”

“Too many mallow gummies,” Baze shot back, batting away the staff.

Chirrut pouted dramatically. “Alas, my greatest weakness,” he proclaimed, gesturing helplessly outwards. “And yours,” he poked Baze again. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed how quickly the bag empties. Fortunately, I have sources.”

“We’re in,” Baze told Cassian, then jabbed a thumb towards Chirrut’s bland smile. “If you find out where he’s getting the damn gummies.”

“Antilles,” Cassian replied immediately, raising an eyebrow at Baze as if he should have known better.

“Now, Captain, do I give away all of your secrets?” Chirrut frowned reprovingly and snapped his staff out, pointing it directly at Cassian’s chest.

Cassian glanced at Jyn, who was still staring at her gloved hands, deep in thought. “Yes,” Cassian said flatly.

“Yes, well. Only when it’s in your best interests.”

“He needs to be stopped,” Jyn said abruptly. “He’s a dictator and a monster.” She looked around the room briefly, and Bodhi could feel the weight of her conviction settle on him like a hand to his shoulder when she met his eyes. She was right, of course, and he could feel his spine straightening a little under her gaze, because if Jyn had decided to take this guy out, then he was gone, and that was that. They would just have to figure it out. She nodded to him slightly before sliding her gaze to Baze, then Chirrut, and finally ending with Cassian. “I’m with you,” she said simply.

Cassian had a trick that Bodhi could never replicate, where he could make his face look…uninteresting. It was something in the expression, Bodhi thought, some way of making himself look bored and self-absorbed, glazed over and just generally, well, out of focus. But sometimes, when something caught his attention, Cassian’s face would snap into sharp relief somehow. Bodhi really didn’t know any other way to describe it. His eyes would turn hard and focused and the lines of his otherwise average features would look harsher and more distinct; he became someone wholly different, someone who drew eyes and maybe set teeth on edge. The few times Cassian had ever turned that sharp focus at Bodhi, it had felt a little like being dissected by laser beams. He’d seen Cassian turn it on others too, and the victim usually squirmed like a worm on a hook until he let them go and flattened himself back into the background.

Jyn, on the other hand, not only met that look with her own unblinking stare, but she seemed to lean into it, like a _lantana_ flower in the Jedha desert turning to follow the sun. Bodhi figured this was probably why Cassian tended to lean right back, drawn to whatever steel in Jyn allowed her to blunt the harsh edges of his stare.

Jyn told Cassian that she was with him like she was declaring war against the galaxy, Cassian went sharp and focused, and Bodhi threw his hands in the air in defeat.

“So we’re doing this,” he said loudly, turning to face Baze because at least _Baze_ never stared at anyone like the stars would all go out if he looked away. Or if he did, at least he had the courtesy not to do it around Bodhi. “Wonderful. Let’s go overthrow a brutal dictator.”

“It will be good practice,” Chirrut mused.

“Not that anyone asked,” Kay’s disembodied voice chimed in over the intercom, slightly muffled by the background whirr of the oil bath. “But there is a sixty-eight percent chance this mission will end in significant injuries to at least one of you.”

“Are you with us, Kay?” Cassian asked softly.

“Of course,” Kay replied instantly. “I merely wanted to mention the odds, so you can be adequately prepared.”

“We’ll be fine,” Jyn said, and turned away from Cassian to pick up Bodhi’s discarded datapad. “I have an idea.”

“In that case,” Kay said, “The odds of injury are significantly higher.”

-  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please tell me if my Spanish was utterly wrong, because I am still learning and always eager to do better.


	2. they have all the money, all the power

 

“Derrosk has his headquarters in Quarrom,” Jyn said over Bodhi’s absent-minded muttering. The pilot slapped the second-hand, oft-repaired console on the side irritably, and the flickering holo image hovering over their table snapped at last into focus. The holo projected a slender Human of middling height, with pale skin and neat dark hair. He was handsome, Bodhi decided, in a very sophisticated, Fashionable Core Worlder sort of way. His Imperial uniform was crisp and well-fitted, and both his black shoes and his captain’s rank were polished to a shine. He smiled at the holo-imager, and Bodhi could see why Rogen Derrosk was so popular with the middle-Imperial elites; he was clearly well versed in the art of self-deprecating charm. The holo fractured slightly, sending Derrosk’s miniaturized image up into the corner as multiple other images and articles popped up.

Jyn selected one particular image and centered it in the projection space. It was a map of a small city, with several different overlays that Bodhi couldn’t quite interpret, but at least one of them drew green squiggly lines through what were definitely spaceport approach lanes, and another highlighted what was probably smuggling dead drops in purple. “Quarrom was an Alderaanian colony up until about seventy years ago,” Jyn informed them, deselecting most of the overlays with a glance at Bodhi. Next to her, Kay tinkered with a black box that Bodhi recognized vaguely as one of Cassian’s heavily encrypted comm routers. Cassian himself stood just behind Jyn, turned slightly away from them all and speaking Alderaanian into a headset with what sounded like a slightly odd accent. Probably talking to someone in Quarrom already, Bodhi figured.

“The transition was ugly,” Jyn put careful emphasis on _transition._ Her face was stone-blank but her voice twisted into mild derision. “Official language is Basic, but the locals still speak an older dialect of Alderaanian,” Jyn went on, confirming Bodhi’s suspicions about Cassian’s call. “Roughly three hundred thousand people living on two hundred square kilometers. Small city, but five major plastics factories within an hour’s transport of the city center, and a government where everyone knows everyone and they’re all scratching each other’s backs.” Jyn sneered at that, then tapped the holo and magnified a different image, a series of holonet articles.

“Imperial Governor Tames Crime,” Bodhi read aloud. “Murder Rates Drop Under Governor’s ‘A Greater Future’ Platform. Administration Responds To Job Crisis. Immigration Numbers Out of Control, Governor to Take Action. Oh, look, that one’s got pictures.”

“Of a bold man, I assume," Chirrut leaned back and tapped his staff gently on the floor in thought, "looking boldly out over a bold skyline from his bold position of power."

“And lots of non-humans in dirty clothes in the street below, looking shifty,” Baze agreed grumpily.

“Well, they’re probably trying to steal all that gold in his office,” Bodhi joked weakly. “He’s got to be vigilant.”

“It is propaganda,” K2SO said as if they were all idiots, and pushed the black box to the center of the table near the holo projector. “Those people are representations of his political prisoners and business rivals.”

Jyn rolled her eyes and grabbed the black box’s cables, hooking them into the console. “Derrosk has millions in precious metals and jewels in his personal palace, and at least four credit lines that we found. One with the Imperial bank on Naboo, one that runs through a series of shell accounts on Bothawui - "

“Bothan banks?” Bodhi shuddered. “We’ll never get near that one, and we really, really shouldn’t try.”

“A third credit line through his smugglers, the Cobalt Solar gang. They mostly run controlled substances - glitterbombs, spice, deathsticks, sometimes rare booze.”

"And the fourth?"

Her frown deepened to disgust. "Slave ring." Jyn finished hooking the cables to the holo just as Cassian lifted his head sharply and suddenly started speaking in rapid-fire Alderaanian, a slight smile on his face as if he’d suddenly been put on line with a friend.

“I’m thinking the Takodana Turnabout,” Chirrut said.

Bodhi stared at him. “What?”

“He won’t leave the planet,” Baze grunted disapprovingly. “Takodana Turnabout pays off at the spaceport.”

“Wait, what about Takodana?” Bodhi felt like the conversation had just taken a sharp turn in direction he hadn’t anticipated. “I thought he was on Nakadia?”

Chirrut smiled placidly at him and then tapped his chin thoughtfully. “Perhaps the Gorse Belt Dance?”

Baze shook his head as Jyn choked back what sounded suspiciously like a giggle. “No ferbils,” Baze said firmly.

“I had a ferbil once,” Bodhi said, bewildered but trying to contribute. “His name was Babik. I was seven,” he added a little defensively at Jyn’s raised eyebrow. “It was the name of an ancient king.”

“He sounds quite fierce,” Chirrut told him kindly.

“The average ferbil is one point four ounces and has neither fangs, claws, nor venomous properties,” Kay sniffed in his distinctly mechanical way. “Historically royal names aside, they are not fierce creatures.”

"He bit my cousin once," Bodhi said, bristling slightly. "She was holding him over my head so I couldn't reach and he nipped her finger so hard she bled."

"Fierce," Jyn agreed calmly, and Bodhi uncrossed his arms with a mild huff.

“The Worried Wookie,” Baze grunted, pulling the old blaster from his holster and starting to poke at it again, clearly bored with the conversation.

Jyn tilted her head and frowned. “You think Derrosk is that kinky?” 

“Politicians don’t get that worked up about aliens," Baze shrugged, "unless they have a fetish.”

“That would explain all his terrible immigration policies,” Chirrut mused, looking mildly disgusted.

“He’s…got a wookie fetish?” Bodhi asked hesitantly, no longer sure he really _wanted_ to understand this conversation.

“How have you worked with this crew for so many months and still not picked up basic criminal terminology?” Kay demanded. “I will add summaries of Significant Thefts and Confidence Tricks of Historical Value to your short-term priorities list - ”

“The Onderon Chrono Con,” Jyn said, cutting Kay off.

“Ah, very nice,” Chirrut patted her hand. “A classic. But where would we find a mechanical snake in our limited time?”

Bodhi leaned back in his chair and wondered how many cups of caf was too many. “I give up.”

“The likelihood that someone with Rogen Derrosk’s experience would not recognize such a common con is approaching zero,” Kay said prissily. “He is familiar with the criminal world and will likely react poorly to any maneuver that he has already seen before. Which is all of them,” he added after a beat. “You will have to devise a more original deception.”

“There are no new cons,” Jyn started stubbornly, but stopped as Cassian pushed between her and Kay and clipped his headset into the black box.

“Remember my contact in Quarrom?” He smiled briefly at Jyn, then nodded to Kay. “Put it through, and make sure it’s double-encrypted.”

“Communications security is a significant part of my role in this team,” Kay grumbled, as the black box whirred and clicked in his metal hands.

“So do your job,” Jyn said, leaning slightly into Cassian’s shoulder.

The holo images of Derrosk and his press clippings flickered out, and a holo-call took over the projector, showing an older Nakadian male, the fine feathers on his skull greying and thinned with age, but his body lean and sky-blue eyes as alert as any soldier.  “Comandante Erollisi,” Cassian said as the image stabilized and the man’s eyes focused on them. “Could you please tell my team what you were saying about Derrosk?”

“I have not been called Comandante in a long time, Sward,” the older sentient said warmly, smiling a little sadly. “You understand, we’ve technically had open elections in Quarrom since our official independence from Alderaanian rule decades ago. Self-governing is, ah, difficult, but we were making progress until Ambassador Tichinde Bonu.” He grimaced, his fine grey feathers ruffling slightly until he smoothed them down with a thin hand and visibly composed himself. “Bonu was a minor officer in our planetary security forces. Then Rogen Derrosk came to our world. He bankrolled Bonu’s political career, and together they sold our factories to the Imperials. Within a year, Bonu had bribed and murdered his way into the Imperial’s good graces, and he nominated Derrosk as the local Governor.”

“Who won the “open election” without much effort, I take it,” Chirrut said dryly.

“The elections are a joke,” Jyn growled. “Just a way for Imperials to pretend they’re on the people’s side while they fuck with the numbers.”

The Nakadian commander inclined his head in sad agreement with her. “Anyone who is deemed a threat to the Governor is declared an enemy of the state. They are imprisoned, and by law, their assets are seized, their families bankrupted.”

“That’s why the Comandante is in hiding,” Cassian explained to the rest. “He is currently the opposing candidate to Derrosk in the upcoming election.”

“You’re taking a big risk talking to us, then,” Bodhi picked at a loose thread on his old gloves, feeling the ghost of the Empire’s heavy hand settling on the back of his neck. Next to him, Jyn suddenly shifted in her seat to lean against his shoulder and Cassian met Bodhi’s eyes over her head, understanding hidden in the dark corners of his gaze. The pilot smiled briefly at them both, glad to have such fierce friends. “We owe you a debt,” Bodhi said softly to the holo image.

“The debt is mine,” the commander smiled ruefully. “Sward saved my life. Twice, in fact.”

“One and a half,” Cassian murmured.

“How does one quantify half of a saved life?” Kay asked.

“Well,” Cassian shifted his weight, suddenly appearing a little embarrassed. “I was the one sent to kill him the first time. That only half counts, no?” He was very obviously not looking at Jyn, but she was the one who answered, a brittle half-smile on her face.

“Another disobeyed order, Captain?”

A strange, dark expression that Bodhi couldn’t interpret passed quickly over Cassian’s face, but before he could answer, Erollisi spoke up. “I understand that orders changed when it became clear I was not, in fact, the Imperial sympathizer I was accused of being,” the general smiled sadly. “Sward is a man of honor, though, and he - ”

The Nakadian cut off abruptly. The pained look on Cassian’s face snapped into something harsher, and Bodhi felt Jyn tense up against his shoulder. “What? What is it?”

“Commander, is this line secure?” Chirrut’s voice, normally so calm, was suddenly flinty.

“I have encrypted our communications equipment with multiple phased –“ Kay began irritably, but Cassian but him off.

“Comandante, are you safe?”

“I don’t...I don't know,” Erollisi answered distractedly, looking off the side of the holo and shifting his weight, his feathers ruffling in agitation. The faint sound of booted feet, then something heavy crashed off-screen, and Erollisi’s face transformed from a worried old man to something sharp and wild. He feathered crest flattened protectively against his skull, and his thin mouth split to reveal rows of sharp teeth. He raised his hands, thin fingers bent into cruel shapes and needle-sharp nails spiking out of his fingertips like lothal-cat claws. Before any of the crew could react to the savage change in his demeanor, the image wavered, and then stormtroopers appeared around Erollisi.

Cassian lunged across the table faster than Bodhi could process, and slapped a switch on the black box. The image flickered but held - but the green light that indicated the recorder was working went dark. Cassian had just turned off the imager, Bodhi realized, so that whoever was on the other end could no longer see them.

“ _Nunca me rendiré!”_ The Nakadian shrieked in a jagged voice, leaping forward with outstretched claws, then cut off abruptly as one of the stormtroopers smashed him hard across the face with the butt of his rifle and another snapped a black bag over his head.

“I thought you encrypted this,” Jyn snarled under her breath to K2SO, who whirred angrily in response.

“The communication was completely secure from our side. The hack was clearly done on his end, with what appears to be extremely high-end decryption algorithms commonly only found –“

“In Imperial control,” a new voice cut in smoothly, and Bodhi felt his stomach tighten as a Human walked calmly into the holo even as stormtroopers dragged the struggling Nakadian offscreen. He was of medium height and build, but with a beautifully tailored Imperial uniform and immaculate hair and nails, and worse still, a charming smile on his handsome face.

Rogen Derrosk smiled at the holo imager, and bowed slightly. “Pleased to finally make your acquaintance, Mister Joreth Sward.”

Bodhi felt sick. Beside him, Jyn went rigid as stone, and Bodhi reached blindly to grab her hand. It was already clenched into a tight fist, and he had to use both hands to peel her fingers apart to wiggle his own around hers. _He said Sward_ , Bodhi wanted to say but swallowed back. _He doesn’t know who Cassian is, he can’t, Sward is just left over from some other mission, it’ll be okay_.

On her other side, Cassian’s face had tightened, but his voice was calm as he leaned over the table and said almost pleasantly into the comm box, “Hello, Governor Derrosk.” His voice thickened into the odd accent he’d used earlier, probably the local dialect.

“I was disappointed that we did not meet last time you were on my planet,” Derrosk folded his hands behind his back and stood in a relaxed imitation of parade rest. “I heard you made an impressive deal with some of my business associates.”

“I heard you were not so pleased with Zzhoren when you discovered how many food shipments he paid me for a few rebel names.” Cassian’s voice stayed light, but there was an undercurrent of satisfaction that Derrosk must have heard too, because his smile was suddenly significantly less charming.

“Worthless rebel names,” Derrosk corrected. “That led to old, empty bunkers and obviously forged identities.”

“Not my fault your people moved too slow,” Cassian almost smiled, and he said something in that oddly accented Alderaanian that made Jyn flash a sharp-edged smirk and Derrosk curl his lip.

“As you say,” the Imperial replied blithely. “Although I must thank you for delivering at least one Rebel sympathizer to me. If you had not contacted him, I should never have found Knes Erollisi.”

All traces of humor vanished from Cassian’s face. “You cannot execute a public hero like Erollisi without consequence,” he said tonelessly.

Derrosk adjusted his pristine gloves with a thoughtful air. “Especially when the only evidence I have is his connection to a shifty off-world information broker.” Bodhi thought _oh good_ with no small relief. Apparently, Derrosk didn’t know Joreth Sward was connected to the rebellion himself; he just thought Cassian was some opportunistic hack selling bad data.

“Even if you faked evidence,” Cassian retorted brusquely, “Erollisi is popular and well connected. There would be blowback, inquiries.”

“Inconveniences all around,” Derrosk’s smile was back, pleasant and friendly. “Which is why he will merely remain in prison under suspicion of rebel sympathies while we prepare for trial. Once the election is over, well, then he will unfortunately suffer from a shuttle accident, probably while on his way to court. You seem to know how these things go, Mister Sward,” Derrosk’s square jaw and high cheekbones filled the holoscreen as he leaned forward suddenly and looked directly into the imager. Bodhi couldn’t help flicking his eyes back to the recorder light, double checking that Derrosk still couldn’t actually see them.  “Farewell, Mister Sward,” he said. “For your sake, I pray we do not meet again.”

The holo abruptly went blank.

Bodhi looked around at the table. Baze glowered down at the half-assembled blaster in his hands, heavy eyebrows drawn and beard bristling. Chirrut, by contrast, had his head tilted up at the ceiling, his lips moving silently in what was probably his favorite mantra. Kay stood at the end of the table like a hulking tower of black disapproval. Cassian stood almost as still, his face blank and his eyes far away, the only indication that he was not just as mechanical as Kay the slight movement of his chest as he breathed and the fingers of his left hand, which were white-knuckled around Jyn’s hand. Bodhi dared a glance at Jyn herself, who turned to look back at him with sharp green eyes, and he almost immediately felt some of the cold fear in his stomach dissipate, because rather than murderous, Jyn looked...thoughtful.

“Okay,” Jyn said calmly into the silence. “Let’s get to work.”

-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do love coming up with ridiculous con names. I had a dozen more, I swear, but I figured we should move on. (Baze and Chirrut know them all because, let's face it, they probably pulled more than their fair share of not-strictly-legal jobs when the Temple was occupied and the Guardians chased into the gutters. I mean, my first impression of Chirrut in the movie was "charming guy pulling a con on the curbside," with all that mystic stuff and his begging bowl and his hulking backup in the nearby alleyway). 
> 
> I never owned a [ferbil](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Ferbil) as a kid, which makes me a bit sad. But then, I had big dogs, who would have probably eaten it. So it's all for the best.
> 
> I also subscribe to the interesting idea that Alderaan (and let's face it, most of the powerful Core Worlds) were once conquering cultures, that had empires of their own spread across the galaxy. Though they have since 'unified' into the Republic, and later, The Empire, their influence is still visible in many places. Such as, for example, languages, and certain cultural practices. So Nakadia was long ago a colony for Alderaan, and when they finally gained their independence, they retained a good deal of the underpinnings put in place hundreds of years ago by the conquerors. So Nakadian is just Old Alderaanian with an accent (and so, in this world, is Festian, and a few others). 
> 
> I can't find anything on aboriginal Nakadians themselves except that they are "sentient" and "from Nakadia." ('Nakadian' seems to apply to the Humans who immigrated there long ago, and are now considered just as local as the sentients who were there already). Okay then, I hereby declare that Native Nakadians are humanoid, but rather than apes, they are descended from a bird-like species, with feathers where we would have hair, and finer bones. Retractable claws on all four limbs, thick hides, and no beaks but many rows of teeth, like sharks.


	3. thieves find entrances, but grifters make them

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [La Querida Reina Government Conference Center, City of Quarrom]

 

“I’m Taleed Walhi,” Bodhi told the young Human lady at the reception desk, handing over his scandocs and fussing with his jacket sleeve. He probably should try harder not to look so nervous, but Cassian had kindly told him not to worry too much about his unfortunate habits because he could make his fidgeting work for this persona (ten months ago and in another life, they hadn’t been habits at all; Bor Gullet changed a lot of things, but Bodhi did not think about that because he didn’t have to, he didn’t have to remember if he didn’t want to, Chirrut had said and Cassian had nodded and Bodhi had better things to think about right now).

“Walhi is an office worker in a high-stress job,” Cassian told Bodhi in the shuttle, gesturing with his datapad. “It won’t seem too odd if he has a few nervous tics.”

“I’ll, uh, try to keep it to _a few_ , then,” Bodhi had joked weakly, secretly relieved to have permission to mess up. It had made the oppressive fear that he _would_ mess up somehow smaller. Now, he smiled faintly back at the reception lady and pulled out his datapad, snapping it open and tapping at it like his anxiety was centered on his work and not the four stormtroopers walking just outside the plas-glas doors of the lobby.

“You're here for the Erollisi Campaign?” The receptionist sounded surprised, her blue eyes widening with curiosity, but she didn’t press it. “Down the hall, third door on the left.”

“Thanks, thanks,” Bodhi took back his scandocs – he really needed to ask Jyn how she’d made these in, what, an hour? – and turned as if to walk away from the desk, then stopped and raised a finger like he had just remembered something, and turned back. “Excuse me, miss, sorry, but I also have to check in my boss. Jao Dahn, of Kafrene Consultants. He didn’t already check in, did he?” He clutched his datapad to his chest and gave her a worried frown. “If he beat me here, I’ll never hear the end of it, he’s kind of a hard-ass, so I hope…”

The receptionist bent her elegantly coiffed blonde head to type at her console, and Bodhi leaned against the desk next to her, tapping his fingers restlessly on the polished surface. “I think you lucked out,” the receptionist smiled reassuringly and looked up at him, waving a hand at her console. “No one by that name has checked in. You’re safe,” she winked a little too, and Bodhi allowed himself to relax slightly. He took the sign-in log that she held out and dashed off a messy signature that hopefully looked nothing like his own actual signature. Cassian had made him practice it until Jyn had plopped food down on the datapad, and Bodhi was reasonably sure that Taleed Wahli's handwriting was not in any way like Bodhi Rook's handwriting. Taleed Wahli was not Bodhi Rook. That was important, not letting the fake person bleed into the real one. At least, that's what Cassian had said with a faint shadow on his face, and Jyn had bumped his knee with her own and then handed Bodhi his scandocs. Handed _Taleed Wahli_ his scandocs, that was. "All good," the receptionist cut into his thoughts with another polite smile, taking back the sign-in log and registering his name (fake name) on the building's records.

“Oh thank goodness,” Bodhi exhaled, and then gave her his best smile. “My boss will be here with the rest of his team any minute then. Um, he really gets touchy about administrative stuff, so when he comes in, could you just maybe send him back to the conference room? I’ll come back out and handle any paperwork he needs to sign or anything, I’m so sorry for any inconvenience but he can be kind of a jerk - ”

“Sure, that’s fine, don’t worry,” the receptionist smiled and gave him a sympathetic eye roll. “I deal with big egos all the time, honey. I’ll send him through.”

Bodhi’s shoulders slumped in relief and he smiled at her again. “Thank you so much, miss, um, miss...?”

“Lena Tatham,” she grinned cheerfully at him.

“Miss Tatham,” Bodhi repeated carefully, as if he didn’t know, as if he didn’t have her whole life in a file in his hands. “I’m Wahli,” he blurted out, and then winced as she glanced down at the sign-in log and back up to him.

“I know,” she said, holding the log up for him to see his own (not his own, totally different from his own) signature.

“Right. Right. Um, thanks, that’s really,” he looked down at his datapad and swallowed. “You're amazing, thank you."

“Of course,” Lena Tathem grinned and leaned forward slightly. "Long day at the office, huh?"

It was what he'd hoped would happen, what Cassian had told him to try for, but her sweet smile threw him slightly, and Bodhi scrambled to look pleased as well as surprised. "Oh, uh, yeah. Always. You, uh, you know how it is." Bodhi tried to remember how Cassian stood when he was talking to Jyn, and stepped a little closer, smiling as invitingly as he could. It seemed to do the trick, and the receptionist's smile softened into something a little more conspiratorial.

But then she glanced over his shoulder and raised an eyebrow. “Is that your boss?”

Bodhi turned to look out the clear plas doors, then whirled quickly around and snatched up his scandocs from the receptionist desk. “Oh no, I better, better run. Thanks again, Miss Tatham!”

“Call me Lena,” she called after him. Bodhi turned to wave back an acknowledgment to her over his shoulder. Then he tucked away his scandocs and clattered deliberately down the hall.

Behind him, just as he was going through the third door on the left, the lobby doors burst open and a demanding voice snapped, “Yes, this is it, come, we have places to be! I have very little time to work miracles here. Where is Wahli? Ah yes, I see him there, come on, no time for nonsense, no time!”

The approaching party swept past the receptionist, who smiled politely and did not ask them to check their scandocs or sign the log. Bodhi took a deep breath and darted into the conference room. He had just enough time to glance around; it was a shabby set up, with cheap fold up tables pushed in the center of the space, and a variety of different chairs scrounged from other rooms. A handful of consoles cluttered the table tops, and a few holostreams flickered along the walls. The people were also somewhat of a mishmash, most of them Nakadian natives with an occasional other non-human scattered around and two Human females blinking at him in surprise. They wore mostly low-end street clothes, though a few were in cheap business suits. Not a bustling center of political power, Bodhi surmised.

He barely had time to step aside when the door flew open, and “Jao Dahn” swept in like a small contemptuous hurricane, entourage close behind.

“Well?” Chirrut demanded loudly, setting his black wood cane on the floor in front of him and resting his hands imperiously on the carved handle. “Is it as bad as I expect?”

Behind him, Cassian leaned in and muttered something in his ear, and Chirrut sighed. Loudly. “Of course it is,” he said, and then thumped his cane on the worn carpet. The cane matched well with the dark suit he wore, accented with a bright red scarf of some kind tucked fashionably around his neck. Baze lumbered behind him, dressed in an ill-fitted suit that more or less matched Chirrut’s, without the red scarf or the dramatic flair, carrying a large briefcase. Cassian’s suit looked slightly rumpled, like it had once fit well but he was just too sleep-deprived and harassed to really maintain the crisp lines, and his arms were full of datapads and a cracked caf mug. Jyn stood just to his side, dressed from head to toe in dark green fatigues that vaguely resembled some Outer Rim mercenary uniform, her hands clasped behind her back and her hair pulled tightly away from her impassive face. They were all arrayed behind Chirrut, who raised one hand and sharply adjusted his round black glasses with clear disdain.

“Let us begin,” he announced imperiously, and swung his cane up to point in the nearest Nakadian’s face. “Turn those holofeeds off,” he ordered. “They are useless distractions; half of them are telling us things we already know, and the other half tell us lies. Go on, go, _off_ with them.”

The startled Nakadian stared at the end of the cane hovering unwavering a few centimeters from her nose, then at Chirrut’s face, and then back to the cane. “Are you deaf?” Chirrut barked. “Holofeeds, off! And no, no, people, you need these windows to be _open!_ You need light to see the goal! You need to see the goal to win the race! A blind man could tell you this – and he is! Come, come, let’s _move!_ Open the windows, Wahli, there’s a good man.” Bodhi scrambled to tug at the heavy blinds over the conference room windows, and his movement seemed to galvanize the rest of the room. The Nakadian on the business end of Chirrut’s cane stepped back and started clicking off the holofeeds around the room, and the rest of the dozen or so people jumped to their feet, buzzing with interest and uncertainty.

Bodhi tugged the last curtain open and came to stand beside Cassian, tapping intently on his datapad while peering over the edge at the newcomer.

“Tatham?” Cassian asked quietly as Bodhi brought up the receptionist’s profile that he now needed to annotate, and opened the program that would allow K2SO to tap into the building’s holonet access while the rest of them settled into the campaign spaces. Bodhi glimpsed a long file in Bothwani script on Cassian’s datapad before the captain flicked the screen to a coded text chat that Bodhi couldn’t understand even if he could read it.

“I prepped her,” Bodhi answered the question after a moment, scratching at his temple lightly and then scowling as he realized what he was doing. “She’s, um, she seems nice enough.”

Cassian flicked a glance up at him. “Considering who she is,” he replied dryly.

Bodhi hunched his shoulders. “Yeah,” he muttered. “Right. Considering.”

A few steps away from Cassian, Jyn turned her inscrutable face to look at Bodhi, and though he could never read her stony expression, he thought there might be sympathy in her eyes. Bodhi flapped a hand at her in thanks and dismissal; he knew the stakes here, and he was okay with the plan. It was just…that _tone_ that Cassian used sometimes, when he was talking about people like, well, like Lena Tatham. About people like -

“Excuse me, who are you?” A new voice cut through the chatter as a Human male walked into the room, holding a tray of caf mugs and looking around at the activity with bewilderment.

Chirrut whirled around, his long coat flaring, and swept a bow. Baze did not roll his eyes, but Bodhi could almost see the effort it took. “Jao Dahn, Consultant and Campaign Manager for Comandante Erollisi,” Chirrut flicked a hand carelessly at the rest of them. “My team. We were hired by the Comandante for the final push of the election. I am here to make sure the campaign stays fresh, and the momentum keeps rolling forward. Always forward!” He smacked his cane against the table for emphasis, and the nearest young Nakadian jumped in surprise but also smiled a little in tentative hope.

Bodhi snuck a glance at Cassian, who somehow managed to look simultaneously bored and overworked, but there was definitely a hint of a smile at the corner of his mouth. Bodhi wasn’t Jyn, of course, but he’d been around the captain long enough to at least read some of the signs. Also, Chirrut was being so patently ridiculous that Bodhi wasn’t sure how any of them were supposed to keep a straight face.

“Erollisi was arrested yesterday,” the newly arrived Human said grimly, handing the tray of full mugs off to the young Nakadian.

Chirrut paused as if this was news to him, and then shrugged. “Very well, give me the next one.”

“What?”

“The next one in line,” Chirrut said firmly. “Who in your party is next in line to run for the position of Governor?”

“She is also in jail,” the man replied a little warily. “And so is the “next one” after her.”

“Who are _you_ then?” Cassian glanced up from his datapad for a moment in order to sweep the man an assessing look.

The man glanced behind himself as if he suspected Cassian was talking to someone else. “Julan Vosh,” he said a little tentatively. Cassian flicked him an unimpressed look and turned back to his datapad dismissively. “And you?” He shot back, clearly riled by Cassian’s casual indifference.

Cassian looked at him over the edge of his datapad. “Cormin. Administration,” he said in a cold tone, and then pointedly looked back at his work.

Baze took a mug from the nervous young man’s tray and sat on one of the cheap chairs that creaked alarmingly beneath him. “Why aren’t _you_ in jail?” he asked Julan.

The young man turned away from Cassian and threw up his hands. “Because I’m thirty points down in the preliminary polls and there’s no point in arresting a loser.” He sighed, bowing his head. “So I’m sorry, Mister Dahn, but you’ve wasted your trip.”

“Wasted my trip?” Chirrut mused, tilting his head down and actually lowering his glasses slightly as if he were peering over the top of them at Julan. “No, no. I think not.” He snapped the shades back up and turned his head towards Cassian. “He’s perfect, Cormin,” he said decisively.

“Of course, sir,” Cassian replied calmly, not looking up from his datapad.

Bodhi choked a little, even though he knew it was coming. Not an hour ago in the shuttle, Cassian had nearly thrown Vosh’s dossier to the floor in disgust. “No, no, this one is awful.”

“Agreed,” Baze grunted, squinting over Jyn’s shoulder at another copy of the dossier.

“Well you are going to have to make do,” Kay said reprovingly from the shuttle cockpit. “I cannot fabricate a viable candidate without significantly more time and resources.”

“Anyone who had even a remote chance is already imprisoned,” Jyn added, shuffling through the other dossiers disinterestedly.

“I understood there were at least a few options still in the race,” Chirrut asked, nodding at Jyn’s hands.

Jyn held the first dossier up. “Drug dealer,” she said flatly, then started tapping through the dossiers on the datapad one at a time. “Slaver. Drug _addict_. Embezzler, embezzler, and my personal favorite…”

She handed the last one to Bodhi, who innocently tapped the screen before flinching and slapping the datapad off. “Ugh! _Jyn!_ Why would you - ? What is he even - ? _Ugh_!”

“Jyn,” Cassian admonished her, though the corner of his mouth tugged upwards.

“There are no secrets on the holonet,” Jyn told him casually, smirking.

“Vosh it is, then,” Cassian sighed heavily. However much he disliked the choice in the shuttle, though, there was no sign of his disapproval in the conference room. He leaned against the wall and nodded at everything Chirrut said, and Julan Vosh stood there with his mouth hanging open as Chirrut walked in a circle around him as if he were examining a prize racehorse.

“You want to help me run this race?” The poor man stammered at last, for some reason turning to look at Bodhi as if for confirmation. Bodhi shrugged one shoulder and buried himself quickly in his own datapad.

“I do not _run_ races,” Chirrut said grandly, coming around to Julan’s front again and snapping his fingers. “I _win_ them.”

“Coyerti Conglomerate, 3274,” Cassian said in a bored tone.

“Haidoral Prime High Council, 3275,” Bodhi chimed in on cue.

“Court of Shu-Torun, 3277,” Baze added, sipping his caf and skimming disinterestedly through a newscrip from the table.

Chirrut gave one of his sly smiles and leaned slightly towards Julan, eyebrows raised. “Mister Vosh, you are going to be Governor of Nakadia.”

Vosh stared for a long moment, stunned. “Why me?”

“Because _you_ , Julan Vosh,” Chirrut gestured to him to come closer, then set a companionable arm around his narrow shoulders. “ _You_ are a man of the people,” he said, throwing his free hand out wide. Bodhi was bent so far over his datapad that his nose was nearly touching it, but he couldn’t help but watch out of the corner of his eye as (with the help of a subtle nudge from Baze) Chirrut led Julan to the windows, gesturing out the plas-glass with his cane.

“The people of Nakadia _need_ you, because you can lead this city, this _planet_ , into the shining future that it deserves. They need someone who can handle the Imperial presence with peaceful but resolute principles, who can root out the dark poison of slavers and drug dealers without falling prey to prejudice. They need _you_ , Mister Vosh!” Chirrut’s voice rang, clear as a bell through the conference room, and Bodhi noted that every face was turned to the two men by the window with almost rapturous attention – well, except Cassian, who looked mostly bored but also mildly amused, Baze who sipped his caf and flipped a page of the newscrip, and Jyn, who stared at the door like she expected armed ‘troopers to come bursting through it at any moment.  Everyone else, though, was swept up in Chirrut’s performance. A small, profound silence settled in the building as the Guardian’s words hung in the air.

“Also,” Chirrut added in a jovial tone, “I am on contract. So let’s get going, shall we?”

-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm experimenting with shorter chapters, so there won't be too much plot or exposition all at once. 
> 
> I'll explain Lena Tatham when she becomes important to the con. In the meantime, here, have undercover Rogue One, featuring Nervous Bodhi, Unimpressed Baze, Not-Actually-Pretending-To-Be-Terrifying Jyn, and Dramatic-Flair-Is-My-Aesthetic Chirrut. With bonus Enjoying-This-Immensely Cassian.


	4. I can't even say it

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  

“It’s focus-tested,” Bodhi told Julan, enlarging the text on the datapad so the speech was easier to read at a glance. “We ran a, um, a linguistic analysis algorithm on social media hubs. You know, popular Nakadian YouStar channels and, um, and QuantaGram accounts. All the election stuff on the holonet. We compiled a lot of the most ‘liked’ or re-vlogged phrases. So it’s, you know, it’s buzzwords.”

“ _We_?” Kay’s voice was tinny in Bodhi’s earpiece, but his indignation came through loud and clear. “I did not see any of _you_ sitting in the ship processing inane personal vids about shimmerdust eyeliner and lothal-kittens for six hours last night.”

“I’ve never seen anyone hold a press conference in an election here, Mister Wahli,” Julan answered Bodhi nervously, unable to hear the grumbling droid.

Just inside Bodhi’s sightline, Jyn glared at the imposing Congressional Center, the place where the local government supposedly oversaw the making and enforcing of planetary laws. In reality, of course, it was merely a fancy building for wealthy Imperial-controlled lackeys to sign what they were told and squabble amongst themselves for scraps of power or influence. It was also, Cassian had informed them with a dark look in his eye, staffed entirely by prisoners, who cleaned, cooked, and kept the place looking as refined as it did. All for free, of course, as part of their sentence. The building was a hive of forced labor and bureaucratic hypocrisy, but it looked solemn and impressive. Chirrut proclaimed it the perfect backdrop for his candidate’s first major press appearance, and that was that.

Julan stared up at it’s graceful arches and shifted his weight nervously. “I don’t know if anyone has ever done this, actually.”

“Exactly,” Jyn stomped over and tugged roughly at Vosh’s collar, straightening the askew buttons. “It’s different. People like to watch ‘different.’”

“Thanks,” Julan said, smiling shyly, and to Bodhi’s mild surprise, Jyn gave him a brief half smile back. “This quote though,” Julan held up the datapad to her. “This thing from my grandmother – “truth is a light” – she never said that.”

“She might say it now,” Chirrut said cheerfully, popping up behind Bodhi and nearly giving him a heart attack. “It is a very catchy phrase.”

Julan blinked. “But…she’s dead.”

“Ah, well, then how do you know she didn’t say it? Be not afraid, young man,” Chirrut tapped his cane meaningfully on the ground. “All shall be as it must be.”

He strode off towards the cameras, swinging his cane almost jauntily.  Julan gazed helplessly after him, looking truly lost in the hyperlanes now. Bodhi felt a little pang of sympathy – he knew what it felt like to have your whole life suddenly spin into a trajectory you never saw coming. Of course, Bodhi had chosen that change; Julan had more or less _been_ chosen.

“Time to go,” Bodhi told the poor man, and waved him encouragingly on his way after Chirrut.

“Of all the bad shit I’ve done,” Jyn said meditatively as they stood together watching the anxious young politician trudge toward the podium like a man facing a firing squad, “The absolute worst is…”

“Politics,” Bodhi supplied when she trailed off.

Jyn’s face twisted like she’d just smelled something foul. “Mm.”

“You’ve got a stick in your hair,” Bodhi pointed out idly. Jyn sighed, pulled off her dark glasses and tucked them in Bodhi’s jacket pocket, and then yanked at her tight bun, letting her hair fall down as she combed through it for the twig. “Those factory guys gave you trouble last night?” Bodhi asked quietly as she tucked her tie into her pocket and struggled with her hair.

Jyn grunted a negative at him. “Not them. Supervisor saw us talking to them, followed us around back.” She glanced sideways at him through her lashes. “I handled it.”

Bodhi felt a little flush of guilt – he had been occupied planning and organizing his next encounter with Lena Tatham, and hadn’t been on the comms when Jyn and Cassian had gone down to the factories to meet with certain factory workers. “Are you okay?” He asked sidling a little closer and dropping his voice too low for anyone else to pick up. “Both of you?”

Jyn’s mouth curved into the briefest of smiles, and then she tilted her head to the side and said in a similar undertone. “Are we both okay?”

“Fine,” Cassian said in their earpieces, and from his voice, Bodhi could just picture the little smile he always had when he teased Jyn. “She knows how to show a guy a good time.”

Bodhi rolled his eyes. An evening spent watching Jyn get into a fight with Imperials was not _his_ idea of a nice evening out, but hey, to each his own.

“Vosh is on the stall,” Jyn said, changing the subject and turning to look up at where Julan was giving his lengthy speech. “Have you two found your friend yet, Cas- Cormin?”

“Yes,” Cassian replied in a brisk, professional tone, all the warmth now gone. “We have.”

“Good, that’s good,” Bodhi said, shifting his weight to get a better look at the podium. Julan was doing well enough, although he was visibly pale and looked down at his datapad every few words.

“No,” Baze replied bluntly in the earpiece. “Not good.”

“He’s not in the regular prisons,” Cassian explained. “We found him in the private cells underneath the Congressional Center. The stairwells are all sealed up, and there is only one elevator.”

“Closed shafts?” Jyn asked, who had finally found the stick and was struggling to untangle it from her hair.

“Yes,” Cassian confirmed in a frustrated voice. “Only one way in or out of here. And even if we get past the guards on the way in, they can shoot into the elevator on the way out.”

“Kill box,” Baze grunted.

“Removing Erollisi will be a noisy endeavor, then,” Kay piped up from the shuttle.

“To say the least,” Cassian answered dryly.

“Heating vents,” Jyn offered. “This building has an older heating system. The vents probably go all the way down.”

There was a faint scraping sound, a hiss, and then Baze said tightly, “too hot.”

“We’ve got some bacta on the shuttle,” Cassian offered, but Baze grunted dismissively.

“I’ve got salves. It’s fine.”

Bodhi clutched his datapad anxiously. “What about the files you were looking for?” On the stage, Julan was reaching the conclusion of his speech, and he was starting to look a little less obviously nervous. Chirrut nodded along behind him, looking disproportionately proud of his efforts.

“Standby,” Cassian said on the earpiece. “We’re looking. Check that map, Baze, I think this is the intersection.”

“So what did Erollisi say when you found him?” Bodhi asked.

“His ministers are down there with him,” Cassian answered in a slightly distracted voice, the sound of a flimsi map rustling in the background. “Old military friends, people he trusts. He won’t leave without them.”

“We can’t get them all out,” Baze said flatly. “It’s him or nothing.”

“Then it’s nothing,” Cassian sounded resigned.

“Not done yet,” Jyn told him, voice soft even as she grimaced at her tangled hair.

“But what I _can_ do,” Julan’s voice suddenly seemed to amplify, at least enough that Bodhi and Jyn could hear it clearly. “Is be that light of truth that leads us through these dark days. Let me light the way for Quarrom, for Nakadia, and our small planet will be the light that leads the galaxy!”

“You know, he’s not bad,” Bodhi murmured to Jyn. “I mean, not great, but not bad.”

“He’s finishing the speech,” Jyn told Cassian, finally getting the twig free and combing her fingers through her hair to pull the snarls out. “Your time is running out.”

On the stage, reporters were waving their hands in the air and calling out rapid-fire questions. Julan’s fragile confidence seemed to falter, and Bodhi grabbed Jyn’s arm in alarm. “He’s not going to run away, is he?”

Jyn glanced at the candidate, and then shook her head. “Come on. Before “Jao” has to trip him.”

They strode over to Chirrut, reaching him just as Julan said “Please, one moment, a brief moment to get a drink of water, thank you.” And dove towards his Campaign Manager.

“They’re asking questions!” he hissed in alarm. “We did not rehearse that!”

“That’s excellent,” Chirrut smiled benignly, handing him a bottle of water. “it means they are paying attention!”

“No one ever paid attention before!” Julan took a nervous sip, and then shoved the water bottle back at Chirrut distractedly. His hands were shaking, and he kept glancing back at the road as if he was considering bolting down it. “No one ever cared!”

Bodhi jumped in surprise as Jyn suddenly stepped forward and reached up, grabbing Julan’s chin with one hand and forcing him to look at her. “Stick to the talking points,” she told him firmly. “You are an honest man, and you want an honest government for your people. _That_ is not a lie. Look confident, sound confident.”

To the side, Bodhi saw with mild dismay that all the cameras seemed to have centered on Jyn and Julan, imaging her hand on his face, her still-loose dark hair, the calm way she spoke to him.

Jyn didn’t seem to notice. “When they know you, they will love you,” she told Julan almost gently, and then gave him a half-smile, dropping her hand. “ _That_ is true.”

“Everything okay?” Cassian asked softly in his ear, and Bodhi bit his lip against the very bad feeling in his stomach.

“It’s fine,” Jyn said, still looking Julan in the eye.

“Okay,” the candidate said slowly, and then straightened his spine and turned back towards the podium.

“I’m happy to answer questions now,” he said into the microphone.

A male Twi’lek raised his recorder and shouted, “Who is that woman?”

“Is she your girlfriend?” Another reporter was quick to add on.

“What?” Julan stared like a startled bird at the crowd, and then shook his head and said weakly, “That’s…that’s not relevant.”

“Why not?” the Twi’lek narrowed his eyes. “What are you hiding?”

“Is she your lover?”

“Is she a hooker?”

“What?” Julen jumped.

“What?” Jyn echoed in a dangerous voice.

“What’s going on?” Cassian demanded sharply.

“A minor snarl,” Chirrut answered.

“I’m an honest man who wants an honest government,” Julan said a touch too loudly. “Doesn’t anyone have a question about my campaign?”

“We have to do something,” Bodhi muttered a bit desperately.

“We’re on our way,” Cassian replied. “Two minutes.”

“I’ve got it,” Jyn said abruptly, and to Bodhi’s shock and mild horror, she reached up and undid the top three buttons of her green shirt, ripped her frayed gloves off, and pulled her loose hair around her shoulder and let it hang against her neck. Then she strode towards Julan and the podium.

Bodhi surged forward to catch her arm. “No, Jy- uh _, Nomi_ , wait, if Derrosk gets your face he might - ”

Chirrut’s cane tapped lightly on Bodhi’s arm, stopping him. “We can work with this,” he reassured Bodhi.

“Work with _what?_ ” Cassian sounded strained, like he was running.

“Hello,” Jyn’s voice was suddenly loud in the earpiece, amplified by the microphones of the podium. She sounded strange to Bodhi’s ears, her Core-world accent crisp and light, and it took a moment for him to realize that she was smiling brightly at the reporters and their holoimagers as she leaned up against Julan’s side. “My name is Nomi Williams, and, well, we were trying to keep this a secret, but as Julan’s grandmother always said, “The truth is a light, and it must shine.””

“Nice touch,” Chirrut chuckled approvingly.

Jyn’s smile was almost blinding now as she tilted her head towards the flabbergasted Julan and announced, “We’re getting _married_!”

“What?” Bodhi yelped.

“What?” Cassian asked, appearing on the balcony overhead.

“Oh good,” Chirrut smiled, turning his head up towards the stone-faced Cassian and the slightly red-faced Baze just lumbering into view behind him. “You made it in time.”

Bodhi flapped his hands helplessly, trying not to look up at Cassian as Jyn all but cuddled her head against Julan’s arm. “In time for _what?_ ”

“Jyn to save the day,” Chirrut replied easily. “See?”

“I used to work in a security company, protecting merchant ships to this sector,” Jyn was answering a reporter’s question. “That’s how we met. I was supposed to ship out a few days later, but he was just so passionate about his people and his city, I was a little swept away,” she shrugged and smiled helplessly. The reporters appeared to eat it up. At her side, Julan finally seemed to get with the program, sliding an arm around Jyn’s waist and smiling weakly at the cameras.

“Initial holonet feedback is strongly positive,” Kay informed them suddenly. “I am monitoring several local channels and social media hubs, and Nomi Williams is already a trending topic. I will adjust her identity documentation to reflect her backstory, as soon as she is done fabricating it,” he finished a touch sourly. “Consequentially, Julan Vosh’s name is also increasing in circulation.”

“Quick thinking,” Baze grunted.

“Yes, it’s very happy news,” Jyn said in that strange bright voice. “He’s a wonderful man. Thank you. One at a time. Yes?”

“Will you be getting married before or after the election?” one reporter shouted above the rest, holo recorders flashing as Jyn glanced up at Julan through her eyelashes.

“Julan has to focus on his campaign and his work for the people of Nakadia right now,” she answered thoughtfully, turning to look directly into the nearest holoimager. “But afterwards, I’m hoping the people will forgive me if I steal a little of his time for myself.”

She laughed, the sunlight catching in her loose hair, and the crowd laughed with her. Bodhi glanced up at the balcony.

“Work quickly on her identity, Kay,” Cassian said softly.

“I have already grafted various documentation and evidence of her employment within a reasonably large security firm operating in this sector. This is a small planet, Cassian, the deception will likely not be difficult to maintain.”

“Yeah, we’ve got this,” Bodhi chimed in, glancing up again. “Don’t worry so mu– oh, Force, it’s Derrosk.”

“Sward,” a cultured voice said distantly in Bodhi’s ear.

Jyn’s head jerked slightly upward, but she managed to catch it in time and turned to Julan instead, smiling. Bodhi, who was not the focus of two dozen reporters, stared up at the balcony where a sharply dressed Imperial officer had just strolled casually up to Cassian and Baze, close enough that his words carried through to the earpiece.

“Derrosk,” Cassian replied coolly, his voice settling easily into his Nakadian accent.

“It was a good speech,” Derrosk rested a gloved hand on the balcony railing and gazed down at the stage with what appeared to be amusement. “A good show. That’s what got my attention, of course. And now there is that lovely little surprise at the end.”

Even from a distance, Bodhi could see Cassian’s rigid shoulders as Derrosk watched Jyn smile and wave at the cameras.

“Yes, we want a big family,” she said, resting her head against Julan’s shoulder again for a moment. No one seemed to notice how her left hand hovered around her belt, possibly because no one else knew that she had a blade tucked carefully tucked in a hidden pocket there. The holo-imagers alone were probably driving her nuts, Bodhi thought. “I’m hoping for at least four children,” she added cheerfully, her light tone and blithe smile completely at odds with the tension in her shoulders and the way she kept turning her shoulder toward the reporters even as she stared them down.

“Another nice touch,” Chirrut commented peacefully, as if this were all a delightful entertainment that he was enjoying. “Nakadians tend to have lots of children; they’ll like that answer.”

“My people have sliced into the security feeds on this building,” Cassian told Derrosk bluntly. “If anything happens to me or my team, the feeds will go straight to the holonet and all the local security companies.”

Derrosk definitely sounded amused now. “Do you think that threatens me, Sward?”

“I think it threatens your bottom line,” Cassian replied without hesitation. “The Empire doesn’t care enough about this planet to invest in even one Star Destroyer for it, which is why you rely on so many private _firms,_ ” Cassian’s voice turned derisive on the word, then smoothed out. “To run your goods and provide a little extra muscle, is that not so, Derrosk?”

“I am a man of means,” Derrosk said crisply, clearly not liking this line of thought.

“But private institutions such as your contractors don’t appreciate a great deal of attention,” Cassian continued relentlessly. “If you pull a lot of bad press in the sector, or worse, make the news cycles so far as the Inner Rim, at best they will raise their rates significantly higher, at worst you will find yourself…a man of somewhat _less_ means.”

There was a long silence on the earpiece. On the stage, Jyn nudged Julan with her shoulder as he stuttered over some intrusive reporter’s question and laughed again, sounding young and carefree. “Oh, Julan, don’t be shy, I don’t mind.”      

“I look forward to your next show, Mister Sward,” Derrosk drawled pleasantly, and then with a casual gesture, turned and walked away. Four stormtrooper helmets appeared in Bodhi’s line of sight, stepping out from the columns behind Cassian and Baze and marching neatly after the Imperial as he walked away.

“You do know that we have not actually sliced into the security feeds in the Congressional Center?” Kay demanded over the earpiece.

“Yeah, we should, um, we should get on that,” Bodhi agreed through a very dry mouth.

“Do,” Cassian told them absently, watching Derrosk vanish into the Center with his guards.

-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is really a lot of fun to write, even when I'm pseudo-high on pain killers. Hopefully it isn't too incoherent.
> 
> The chapter title is from the Leverage quote:  
>  _Sophie: Nate, I have to say, of all the deceitful, unprincipled, corrupt things I've done in my entire life, nothing's as bad as--_  
>  _Nate: Politics?_  
>  _Sophie: I can't even say it._


	5. if stealing a planet was easy, everyone would do it

-

“Hey, look, we’re up ten points,” Bodhi told Chirrut, irrationally pleased. “Jy – I mean, Nomi’s a big hit. Everyone keeps saying how, uh, _nice_ she seems. And pretty, there’s a lot of comments about how she’s pretty. Although Kay’s algorithm says the third most popular word associated with her is, um,” Bohdi squinted at his datapad with some disbelief. “Delicate?”

“Nakadians are a thin-boned people,” Chirrut explained, sitting next to Bodhi at the conference center table and tapping his cane gently against his hard-soled shoes. “They will like her because she fits their standards of beauty and cultural values, and Imperial sympathizers will like that she is a Human with a Core world accent.”

“Right,” Bodhi looked down at his datapad uncertainly. “ _You_ tell her all that, okay?”

“Ten points,” Chirrut mused, then shook his head. “It’s not enough.”

“Still, ten more than we had this morning.”

“Not enough,” Chirrut said with more emphasis. At that moment, Jyn and Julan entered the conference room, and the local volunteers and campaign workers stood up and cheered. Jyn nodded slightly, and Julan looked sheepish and guilty until Jyn wrapped her arm around his and tugged him further into the room and his supporters’ view. Julan met her eyes and flushed a bit deeper, but managed an uncertain smile.  Jyn smoothed a wrinkle from his dress shirt, a sharp contrast to her own dark fatigues.

“We’ll have to get her a different wardrobe,” Bodhi muttered mostly to himself, making a note on his datapad.

“Bright colors,” Cassian said, materializing at Bodhi’s elbow like a wraith. Bodhi didn’t yelp and fling his datapad across the room, but it was a near thing. “Get her something in bright colors.”

“Do they wear sundresses here?” Chirrut asked. “Get her whatever the Nakadian equivalent of sundresses might be. Though I defer to your judgement, Cormin, on the appropriate colors.”

“Right,” Bodhi coughed and watched Cassian carefully over the top of his datapad. “Sundresses. If they have them.”

“Something wrong, Wahli?” Cassian’s bored man-in-the-background mask was firmly in place as he watched Jyn lead Julan towards Chirrut, who rose gracefully to meet them.

“No, not wrong, um, unless…well,” he grimaced and jerked his head slightly towards the admittedly handsome young couple. “ _Is_ it?”

“It was quick thinking,” Cassian said without rancor. “She probably saved the whole plan.”

"Right, of course, just, um, checking.”

"You think I’m jealous,” Cassian said bluntly, turning to look at Bodhi for the first time.

Bodhi waved his hand and sighed. “No, no, of course not.”

“I am, though,” Cassian said easily, like he was commenting on the weather, and Bodhi nearly _did_ drop his datapad this time.

_“What_?” He stared at Cassian in dumb shock for a moment, glanced around to make certain no one was listening, and then blurted, “ _why?_ ”

His friend shrugged vaguely, watching Jyn lean against Julan as Chirrut informed them of the increase in points and reassured the man that he was only doing what was necessary so he could oust the clearly corrupt incumbent. The campaign volunteers cheered again, clapping and crowding close to shake Julan’s hand. “Do not think of it as a lie,” Chirrut said, just loud enough for Bodhi to hear. “Think of it as a campaign promise. Doing what you must do so that Derrosk is removed from power and you have a chance to turn things around. As the Force wills, for the people of Nakadia!”

“It’s worth it,” Jyn told him firmly, and Julan nodded uncertainly, patting her hand on his arm and then flushing a bit at his own audacity. Jyn half-smiled at him with dry amusement.

Cassian held his datapad like he was working on it, but the screen was blank and his fingers still against the surface. “I can’t give her that,” he nodded at Jyn and Julan, his face suddenly weary and his eyes turned so that Bodhi could not see them clearly.

Bodhi frowned as he tried to parse that. “Uh…what?” He tapped his datapad nervously. A moment later, it occurred to him. “What, you mean, a normal life? Settling down, wearing ties, talking about children?” He blinked, then debated throwing his datapad at Cassian’s head. “You think that’s - is that what Jyn - I mean, have you even _met -_ ” he floundered, his cursed tongue tangling itself in knots as his thoughts scattered, pulled apart by the frustration and concern twisting through his head like ropey tentacles in a dark cave – abruptly, he dug the nails of his right hand into his thigh, hard, derailing his own train of thought and forcing himself back into the brightly lit conference center.

“She looks happy,” Cassian said from his side, so softly that Bodhi almost didn’t hear.

Before Bodhi could figure out how to even _begin_ addressing the severe ridiculousness of this entire conversation, Julan strode off towards his campaign volunteers and Jyn and Chirrut turned to join them.

“Well, almost two full days planet-side and we are still alive,” Chirrut grinned. “The Force is with us all.”

Jyn pressed her lips together, her expression mildly defiant as she looked up at Cassian. “We had to keep him in the running,” she said resolutely, as if daring him to disagree.

Cassian nodded but otherwise said nothing, face neutral. Bodhi fidgeted as the silence stretched out, and then said a touch too loudly, “Three hundred thousand people, and only half of them are likely to vote. So right now we really just need to get about twenty thousand of them to change their minds…in less than a week.”

“Baze, check in,” Cassian tilted his head and clicked his earpiece on, though his gaze stayed on Jyn, and Bodhi could swear there was a touch of wistfulness around his otherwise expressionless eyes.

“Found the smugglers’ main business depot,” Baze answered over the earpiece. “Local chatter says they rely on dead drops to move goods and keep their shipments in government storage.”

“We’ll need a map of those drops, and a list of the warehouses,” Jyn replied, pulling her own datapad out. “I can get in and grab that tonight if you get me an access point.”

“First, you have to go shopping,” Bodhi interrupted. Jyn raised an eyebrow at him, and he sighed at her confusion. “Seriously?”

“You will need to fill your new role,” Chirrut explained.

Jyn frowned. “I’m a former security guard,” she said tightly.

“But now you are also the affianced lover of a young politician aiming for a place among the local political elite,” Chirrut reminded her gently.

Jyn was facing Chirrut, so she probably didn’t see Cassian’s jaw tighten briefly at “lover.” Bodhi wished he hadn’t seen it either, because he didn’t have the slightest idea how to fix it and wasn’t sure he should if he could. _Ridiculous_ , he thought again, _all my friends are ridiculous_.

“Access panel is on the roof,” Baze said as if he hadn’t heard the whole exchange on the comm. “Console in the back room, but there’s probably a basement.”

“That’s where the real data will be,” Jyn said, scowling at Bodhi. “Fine, let’s go shopping now. Then I’m heading to join up with Baze.”

“I’ll meet you there,” Cassian said, scanning around the room like he was no longer invested in the conversation. “Baze will need to stand watch outside, and I don’t want you going in alone.”

Jyn considered this for a moment, then nodded curtly. “Let’s go,” she told Bodhi.

“Why do you need _me_ to…” Bodhi started, then stopped as all three of them, even Chirrut, gave him a significant look. “Right. Sundresses,” he sighed.

Jyn wrinkled her nose. “Do they even _have_ those on Nakadia?”

 

\--

 

“Bodhi, you ready?” Jyn asked quietly in Bodhi’s ear, her voice muffled slightly by the whistle of wind that echoed in three of the five comms hooked into the private frequency.

“Yeah, I’m, uh,” Bodhi adjusted his grip on his mug of lukewarm caf and swallowed to clear his throat. “I’m ready,” he said, scanning the half-empty caf shop and watching the door for his target.

“Kay,” Cassian’s voice was slightly more clear on the comm, probably because he bothered to turn his head away from the wind when he spoke. “Report.”

“In position,” Kay replied immediately. “I have full visual on the subject, the main entrance, and the street. I have also sliced into the security feeds for the alternate exit to the facility.”

“The subject?” Bodhi repeated, tapping his fingers on his knee and then scolding himself for being too obviously nervous. “I’m “the subject” now? I thought that was Tatham.”

“No, Lena Tatham is subclassed as “the target,”” Kay informed him primly. “You are “the subject” of this portion of our endeavor - ”

A loud grunt over the comm cut him off, followed by a distant crashing noise. “We’re in,” Baze said a beat later.

“I could have picked that lock,” Cassian said dryly. “It would have been quieter.”

Baze grunted again, but it was Jyn who replied, “This was faster.”

“Apparently.” The quality of their audio feed changed slightly, the wind dropping away and replaced by the slight echo of an enclosed space. “We’ll be twenty minutes at most,” he told Baze.

“I’ll be here,” Baze replied, and there was the distinct sound of a repeater rifle clicking into semi-automatic. Bodhi wondered when he had learned to identify heavy weapons by their arming sounds.

“The basement is this way,” Jyn said, and Bodhi found himself straining to hear their footsteps through the comm, trying to track his two friends’ passage through the smugglers’ headquarters in his head.  It would have been a lot easier if either of them ever made more noise than a shadow in the night.

“Anything yet?” Bodhi caught himself tapping his knee again and curled his fingers into the material of his trousers instead.

“Empty so far,” Cassian assured him in a near-whisper. His voice became suspicious, and Bodhi thought he heard the faint scrape of a blaster being drawn. “Surprisingly empty. Not even a guard on the roof.”

“It’s a weekend,” Jyn answered. “Even smugglers take days off.”

“The target is approaching,” Kay announced solemnly. “The subject’s target,” he clarified, and then. “The subject is Bodhi. In case you were still confused.”

Bodhi could practically hear Jyn smirk. “Go get ‘em, tiger.”

“Thanks,” Bodhi muttered into his caf, and braced himself. The door to the caf shop swung open, and a blonde Human woman walked in. Bodhi swallowed hard and tried not to stare at her. Oh, good. She was here. Now all he had to do was just…not screw up. Slowly, he sidled a little closer to the counter and leaned back, his face still turned away from Tatham, his half-full caf mug jittering slightly in his hand.

 “Hi,” Lena Tatham walked up to the counter of the caf shop and gave the cashier a polite smile. “A double dark assam tea, please, with crème-de-lothal and pink ginger.”

“Pink ginger in assam tea,” Baze grumbled disapprovingly. “The flavors are disharmonious.”

“There’s the computer,” Jyn said just above a whisper. “Give me ten, and we’re in.”

“Do you need help, Bodhi?” Cassian asked in the same tone, and Bodhi might have bristled if Cassian hadn’t sounded so kind.

The datapad on his belt suddenly felt heavy as a stone. “I’ve got it,” Bodhi replied, although to be honest, he did not feel like he had anything at all. But his friends were risking death or capture. He could do his part. Bodhi reached for the datapad on his belt and snapped it open, calling up the files he needed and then carefully switching off the password lock, so the ‘pad could be opened by anyone who cared to look. With caf in one hand and the prepped datapad in the other, he cleared his throat, turned around to face his target, and then said in a surprised voice, “Oh! Hello Miss, uh, Miss Tatham, right?”

“Oh, hello Mister Wahli,” she smiled and brushed a manicured hand over her neat hair. “Just stepping out for some caf?” She gestured around at the shop, which was admittedly only a few steps away from the conference center, although that had nothing to do with why Bodhi had chosen it. Well, Cassian had chosen it, because Cassian had found holos on Lena Tatham’s Quantagram account that suggested she frequented this place almost every evening. But Bodhi was the one here, while the others were across town breaking into who-knew-what kind of terrible place and –

“Uh, yeah, just needed a caffeine boost,” Bodhi told himself to stop obsessing and pay attention to the task at hand. He held up his mug as if she needed a visual aid, and then smiled with faint embarrassment. “The director has Mister Vosh working on his debate answers, so we might be here late tonight.”

“Rough night,” Lena’s smile was distantly polite, her fingernails clicking against the counter absently as she waited for her order.

“You do not appear to be making much of an impression,” Kay commented from wherever he was lurking across the street, probably watching through the walls with infrared or sonar or whatever weird spy tech Cassian had crammed into his chassis. Bodhi debated making a rude gesture at the wall, and decided not to.

“We don’t want _him_ to make a big impression on her,” Cassian said softly. “We just need her interest in the data.”

Right. Bodhi had to figure out how to casually drop the data he had spent an hour memorizing. But how to do that?

“Five minutes,” Jyn said quietly, the faint sound of humming consoles making her earpiece buzz slightly.

“Vosh is doing okay,” Bodhi said a little slowly, taking a quick sip of his caf. “Although I’m not sure he’s really up to Governor Derrosk’s weight-class.”

As expected, Lena’s nose wrinkled slightly at the mention of Derrosk’s name. “Few are,” she said, even more distant than before.

“Tell her about the financial check,” Cassian said in his ear.

“Tell her about the porg scandal,” Jyn countered.

“Tell her pink ginger in assam is obscene,” Baze muttered.

“The porg scandal is not yet in place,” Kay told Jyn primly. “It would be premature to announce it now.”

“I’ve been running some numbers on him,” Bodhi said a touch too loudly, and then scratched his temple and flushed a little when Lena Tatham looked at him with a startled expression. “On Derrosk,” he went on determinedly, lowering his voice and doing his best to tune out the soft laugh in his ear. “His background, his history, his, you know,” Bodhi took another quick sip and said as casually as he could manage, “his finances.”

Lena Tatham, who had been smiling at him with slightly glazed eyes, suddenly seemed to focus on him, her smile faltering slightly. “Oh?” She said in a careful voice, and stepped slightly closer, her painted nails no longer clicking on the counter top. “Wow. That must be…a lot of work. No wonder you need the caf.”

“Hooked her,” Jyn said approvingly. “Well done.”

Bodhi tried not to flush again. “Oh, it’s not so bad. There’s not much in the public records but, uh,” Bodhi leaned in conspiratorially, “I’ve got an old school friend who, who works in the archives. He, um, he was, you know…”

“In your debt,” Cassian said.

“Bribable,” Jyn snorted.

“Instrumental in your successful data acquisition,” Kay supplied.

Bodhi fought to keep from rolling his eyes. “Helpful,” he finished firmly.

“Oh really? Sounds like a great friend.” Lena Tatham’s order arrived at her elbow, and she gave a vague smile towards the server before grabbing it and stepping close to Bodhi and lowering her voice into something that was positively…suggestive. “Find anything juicy in all that data?”

If Jyn hadn’t been elbow-deep in a smuggling ring’s console, Bodhi had a feeling that the noise of derision she made in his earpiece might have been loud enough to echo in space. “Well,” he fumbled a little, not entirely sure he was prepared for Lena to come on quite so strongly. “Well, you know, maybe a few things.”

Lena laughed as if he’d just said something funny, and propped her hip against the counter next to him, which consequentially angled her upper body towards Bodhi and slightly blocked off his path towards the door. He’d have to shove past her to get by. “I’ve always wondered exactly how wealthy he really is,” she mused, bringing her cup to her mouth and tapping it slightly against her lower lip. “The Governor’s salary isn’t public knowledge,” she said, possibly misinterpreting Bodhi’s uncertain expression. “But I bet it’s pretty nice,” she added, with an odd emphasis on the last word as she flicked her eyes up and down his body.

“Oh, uh, it definitely seems to be,” Bodhi glanced down at her mouth, which was painted bright pink and open just slightly. Oh, Holy Force, she wasn’t going to try and lean up and kiss him, was she? Oh dear. He was not prepared to push things this far. In a caf shop? In full public view? He was not – that hadn’t been the plan – what if –

“Steady,” Cassian said in his ear, calm and quiet. “Control your breathing.”

Bodhi drew in a slow, deep breath into his diaphragm, like Chirrut had showed him. “Between you and me, there’s some wild stuff in here,” he gestured vaguely with the datapad, and watched Lena Tatham’s eyes lock on the ‘pad like a loth-cat sighting a rat. _Hooked_ , he thought, with no small sense of relief.

“Download complete,” Jyn said on the comm. “Almost done.”

“Good,” Cassian’s voice suddenly had a faint edge that made the hair on Bodhi’s neck stand upright. “We need to move.”

“Enemies?” Baze asked, and the whine of a repeater cannon spooling up filled the earpiece.

“Wild stuff?” Lena repeated. “Like, what,” she looked around a little theatrically and then stage-whispered, “Call girls?”

“She is terrible at this,” Jyn said flatly.

“No, no, nothing like that,” Bodhi shook his head and laughed nervously. “Just, you know, he’s got some really weird, um, investments and stuff like, like…” Bodhi hunted nervously through the things he had practiced saying, but in his ear Cassian suddenly snapped “Jyn, go!” over something that sounded like angry shouts in the distance.

“Call boys?” Lena asked, a little breathless, and almost in Bodhi’s face now, her pink lips shining.

“No imagination,” Baze grunted, and then, “three on the roof,” and the earpiece crackled as he opened fire.

“It’s not that kind of stuff, I think,” Bodhi told Tatham, his smile feeling brittle on his face, like he was balancing shards of glass on his cheeks. “It’s more like, uh, questionable income.”

“Get down!” Cassian barked, and the earpiece hissed with a loud burst of static that made Bodhi wince.

“You okay?” Tatham asked, reaching up to rest an elegant hand on his chest.

“A large portion of carbon-based visitors to this planet develop allergic reactions to the plant life,” Kay informed him.

“Yeah, sorry, allergies,” Bodhi rubbed hard at his nose and tried to keep his focus on Lena Tatham’s face. He found himself staring at her bright pink lips again, which in the shop’s fluorescent lights seemed almost to glow unnaturally bright. Vaguely, he wondered if he could see that lipstick from his shuttle cockpit. It would make an excellent traffic control signal.

…what in the Force was he doing?

Cassian’s voice took on a sharp edge suddenly, sending Bodhi’s heartrate spiking. “Jyn? _Jyn!_ ”

“Head for the roof,” Jyn ordered, and now Bodhi could definitely hear her boots pounding against the hard floor as she ran. Cassian snarled something too low and fast for Bodhi to pick it out, but did not argue with her.

“Taleed?” Lena asked, her head still tilted fetchingly to the side and her eyes wide and innocent despite their constant slide to the datapad in his hand. “Do you, um,” she bit at her bright pink lip and then smiled sweetly at him. “You want to sit down?” She pointed at an open table for two near the window. Should give Kay a clear visual on him, anyway. Bodhi let her lead the way, hands slick against the mug and the ‘pad.

“So, um, it’s not a sex thing, it’s just - ” Bodhi struggled to suppresse a flinch as more blasters suddenly joined the cacophony, and then Jyn gave a series of violent sounding growls to the accompanying sounds of something heavy hitting something soft. “It’s his credit lines,” Bodhi burst out, fighting to sound excited and nervous about his “discovery,” and not blindly terrified that he was listening to his crew fight for their lives.

“Derrosk’s credit lines?” Lena propped her elbows on the table and rested her chin delicately on her clasped hands, which framed her face prettily and also made her cleavage just slightly more prominent. Bodhi felt a little sick.

“He’s got a lot.” Internally, Bodhi was well aware that he was fumbling this, that if Lena Tatham had been even slightly more savvy or slightly less desperate to get her hands on his datapad, she would definitely be suspicious of him. But in his ear, Jyn gave a hard grunt of pain, and something heavy dropped. “More than the public records say. I think some of them might, might be, um - ” he shrugged elaborately, and made a show of looking around to check for listeners. Cassian would have scowled at him if he were this obvious in a sweep for real, but he was putting on a show for Lena, who copied his movement without irony. It bought him time to listen for Jyn and pray that the heavy thing hitting the ground hadn’t been her.

His lungs unlocked when Jyn said calmly, “Hang on, I want to tell you something.” The _snap_ of her truncheon unfolding, the thud of a fist hitting meat, and then a deeper, masculine voice gasped out a foul curse. “See, if you had attacked at the same time this other whelk-fucker did,” Jyn went on conversationally, “It would have divided my attention.” Another heavy _thwack_ , another groan of pain. “But you held back, hoping for a bit of glory, right?” _Thwack!_ “Or is it money? Do you guys work on commission?” _Thwack, clang!_ “So what I’m saying is, I could have been fighting two guys instead of just one.” A final resounding smack, and then he could only hear the muted roar of Baze’s repeater and the occasional bark of Cassian’s rifle. “Where do they get these guys?” Jyn muttered contemptuously, then the sound of her booted feet running.

Bodhi took a sip of caf, and hoped the tremor in his hand wasn’t visible to Lena.

“Your heartrate is too high,” Kay said. “She will likely notice signs of stress if you do not leave soon.”

“He’s doing fine, Kay,” Cassian told them both, though his voice was too tense to be as reassuring as usual.

“Anyway, I better get back to the conference center,” Bodhi managed to smile at Lena. “I’m just, um, just gonna run to the ‘fresher. Do you mind keeping an eye on…” he made a broad gesture towards his caf mug, making sure to set the datapad right next to it as if he had forgotten he was holding it.

If he was a poor actor, Bodhi thought a little sardonically, than Lena Tatham was abysmal. She practically lit up when he stood, barely managing to drag her eyes from his datapad to his face in time to chirp “Oh, of course!” in a false, bright tone.

Bodhi turned his back to make for the nearby ‘fresher, letting the fake smile slide off his face with profound relief.

“She has already picked up the datapad,” Kay reported, his own voicebox distorting into mild disapproval. “You are not even fully out of her sight yet.”

“Is she downloading the files?” Jyn asked, and Bodhi thought he heard someone take a deep breath in his earpiece. Probably Cassian.

“You’re late,” the captain murmured, which told Bodhi that Jyn had rejoined him.

“Training opportunity,” Jyn replied nonchalantly.

“Let’s go,” Baze said, and the sound of blaster fire was abruptly drowned by the sound a grav-car engine roaring to life. Bodhi wondered if they had stolen one as a backup option in case of this exact scenario. Knowing Jyn and Cassian, they probably had.

“Bodhi,” Jyn said briskly in his ear over the engine noise. “You good?”

“Oh, I’m great, thanks. Just great.” Bodhi checked that both stalls in the shop’s ‘fresher were empty, then locked the door and leaned back against it, tugging at his collar and hoping that his shirt wasn’t sweat stained under his jacket. “It’s great over here. And how are you?”

“Mission complete,” Cassian said, sounding completely unruffled. The man could have been grocery shopping, for all the stress Bodhi could pick out of his voice.

“All safe,” Jyn added, knowing what Bodhi really wanted to hear. “Headed home.”

The engine seemed to rumble a little louder when Baze spoke, which told Bodhi that he was probably driving the grav-car. “Derrosk’s smuggler money will be gone by tomorrow night,” he said calmly, as certain as the stars.

“The target is copying the files from the subject’s datapad,” Kay chimed in. “She is also adding several more sweeteners to her tea. I will add her dietary preference to her profile.”

“Pink ginger,” Baze grumbled, clearly still disgruntled at the insult of a tea drinker’s poor taste.

“We’ll put a trace on her comms,” Cassian sighed slightly, and Bodhi heard the familiar snap of the captain’s rifle breaking down into three parts, all of which he was probably tucking into various hidden places in his clothes. “She will probably make the call within a standard day-cycle.”

“So that’s the Tatham piece of the puzzle in place and ready to go,” Bodhi said, attempting to sound as casual and unaffected as the other members of his team. The ones who had been shot at for last fifteen minutes. To his great disgust, his voice still cracked slightly with nerves and tension, and he glared at himself in the spotty ‘fresher mirror.

“Yes,” Cassian agreed. “Well done.”

“Lady killer,” Jyn teased lightly.

“Had there been any killing required,” Kay sniffed, as much as a being with no nasal passages or lung capacity could sniff, “he would not have been the one to handle it.”

“That’s good to know,” Bodhi said faintly, but sincerely. It _had_ been nice to know that if anything went really wrong, a giant murderbot would have come rampaging through the door to save him. Or the wall. Whichever Kay deemed the most expedient.

“You did well, too, Kay,” Cassian’s smile was obvious over the comm. “Thank you for backing him up.”

“If you do not come back from the facilities in approximately three minutes,” Kay said loftily, “My research indicates that the target is likely to take that as either an insult or to assume you are physically ill.” He paused, then added, “Which she will, illogically, also take as an insult.”

“Your research?” Jyn asked. “Is that what we’re calling binge-watching three seasons of a reality dating show?”

“What?” Cassian sounded torn between amusement and concern. “What show? And when did this happen?”

“Don’t answer that,” Bodhi said hurriedly, pushing off the door and adjusting his hair in the mirror, using a few disposable towels to pat his forehead dry. “I have to go back out there in a minute, and I cannot pretend to, to like this lady with that mental image in my head.”

“You did nice flirting,” Baze told him solemnly.

Bodhi laughed out loud, the relief of knowing they were all alive and that he hadn’t even had to dodge what was probably a very sticky pink kiss making him feel almost giddy. “Oh, yeah, it’s not really my strength, but you know,” he leaned his forehead against the cool mirror, closing his eyes. “We do what we must. For the cause.”

Jyn gave a breathless laugh in his ear, Baze rumbled a chuckle, and even Cassian sounded like he was smiling as he said, “Very funny, Rook.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lena Tatham's tea (and additives) are entirely made up, except for "assam," which is a type of bitter black tea. In Baze's opinion, if you order bitter black tea, you better be prepared to _appreciate_ the bitterness. 
> 
> If you're wondering why they suddenly started using their real names on the comm during the double mission, the Watsonian response is that "they have a super secure private line set up." The Doylist reason is "it got way too confusing with the fake names added into the mix."
> 
> On that note, _was_ this too confusing? I had two "operations" happening at once, but all from a single POV. That was the challenge I set myself. Hopefully I pulled it off.


	6. It's a very distinctive style

“I can’t do this.” Bodhi took care to keep his voice low, holding his data pad up for Cassian to see as if he were merely sharing a piece of useful information related to the campaign, and not just having a crisis of confidence (he liked that term, “crisis of confidence.” Chirrut had used it once and it sounded better than “panic attack”). “I can’t,” Bodhi said again when Cassian merely glanced at the open, empty chat window and then at his nervous friend before returning to his own datapad.

“You already did the heavy lifting,” Cassian said in an equally low tone, his fingers flying over his screen as he worked his next step of the operation. Bothan script flitted under his fingers too fast for Bodhi to even attempt to read, and Cassian had at least two chats of his own open beneath the coded text. “You spoke to her in person.”

“Just keep her invested,” Jyn murmured in his earpiece, and then in a sharp voice, “ _On your left!_ ”

Bodhi inhaled sharply in reflex, Cassian’s fingers stilled for a second on his screen, and a few meters away, Chirrut’s head turned slightly. A heavy _thwack_ rang through the earpiece, someone squealed in pain and then abruptly cut off, and then Baze grunted, “Clear.” Bodhi exhaled noisily, Cassian’s fingers again flew across his screen, and Chirrut turned back to the holofeed he was, well, for lack of a better term, that he was watching with Julan Vosh.

Bodhi scowled and dropped his datapad back to his knee, staring at the little “send” icon next to Lena Tatham’s holonet address. “Right. This is the easy part.”

“What are you - ” Jyn paused, gave a hard grunt that didn’t quite obscure the muffled sound of something that may or may not have been a bone snapping, and then resumed without missing a beat, “What are you worried about? She likes you.”

“No, she likes using me,” Bodhi snapped back irritably. Cassian raised an eyebrow at him without pausing his work, and Bodhi took a deep breath and tried to let go of his nerves before he fell into a real sulk.

“That seems like a reasonable exchange,” K2SO piped up from presumably the cockpit of their ship. Although the droid had the full run of the ship while the organic members of the team were running about Nakadia, so he could really be anywhere. The cargo bay. The galley. Cassian and Jyn’s quarters. The ‘fresher. Bodhi snorted at the mental image of the giant KX droid crammed into the tiny ‘fresher talking to them all on the comm. “You are using her, after all.”

As if he needed the reminder. Bodhi swallowed and tapped the side of his datapad, grimacing at the slimy sensation of being someone who used people, even people who were themselves users. “Kay,” Cassian murmured without looking up. “You are not helping.”

“Just ask about her day,” Baze offered, surprising Bodhi. “Let her do the talking.” Distantly, someone shouted something that sounded vaguely like _there he is!_ and Baze’s comm crackled with static for a moment as his repeater cannon whined and fired for three or four seconds. When it stopped, the comm was silent for a few long moments.

“These guys aren’t native to Nakadia,” Jyn said thoughtfully. “Derrosk must have brought them in from Togoria.”

Bodhi fidgeted with the end of his blue tie, balancing his datapad on one knee and trying not to stare at it. “How do you know?”

“Their stance. Togorian Night Strikers use that stance, and for a heavy price they will teach it to mercenaries.”

“Their stance,” Bodhi repeated incredulously. “You know where they trained from the way they stand?”

“It’s a very distinctive stance,” Jyn said defensively, and then abruptly she added, “You don’t have to flirt.”

Bodhi jumped enough to make Cassian glance up at him again. “Uh, was that directed at me?”

Jyn snorted, and for a moment Bodhi thought his earpiece was echoing, until he realized that the secondary sound had been Baze making a similar noise at almost the same time as Jyn. “That’s what you’re really afraid of, isn’t it?” Jyn demanded. “You don’t have to flirt back. Just keep her locked on Derrosk’s finances.”

“How does she do that?” Bodhi asked with some exasperation, because Jyn’s ability to go straight for the throat of a problem never failed to startle him.

Cassian’s mouth twitched into a small smile as he shrugged at his screen. “She’s good,” he said simply. Jyn hummed quietly, a soft sound that made Cassian’s mouth curve up more and made Bodhi fidget, feeling suddenly like a third wheel (or fifth wheel? Sixth? The whole team was on the comm, but Chirrut at least didn’t show any visible reaction, Baze and even Kay stayed quiet, so perhaps it was only _him_ feeling awkward and intrusive as he listened to his friends flirt).

“We made it to the door,” Baze informed them, cutting into the moment.

“Looks like triple code Sandring tech on the lock,” Jyn said. “This is definitely the right place. It’s Imperial military grade, given out only to their favorite business partners. They put this stuff on the high-end prisons, too.” _Like Wobani_ went unsaid, though from the silence on the comm, everyone heard it anyway.

“So that will, will take you, what, five minutes to crack?” Bodhi joked weakly, hovering his finger over the “send” button before dropping it back to his knee with a sigh.

“Please,” Jyn snorted. “Three.”

“Okay, I’m sending this,” Bodhi said firmly, because once he’d said it aloud, he couldn’t back down. He swallowed, and slammed his finger down on the “send” button.

 

**T. Wahli [1012]: hi**

 

**L. Tatham [1012]: hi! how are you?**

 

**T. Wahli [1013]: good thanks. having a nice day?**

 

“Well done,” Cassian murmured, glancing at over at his datapad with a hint of a smile on his face again. He now had three chat windows open, all of them in Bothan. Bodhi could see “assets” and “Imperial Fiscal Resolution” and something about “tax exemptions,” so he guessed that Cassian was hard at work on Derrosk’s Bothan credit line.

Bodhi shot him a glare. “Shut up.”

“I’m almost in,” Jyn said over the comm. “Call the transport in.”

Cassian tapped an authorization key into yet another window on his datapad. Bodhi tried not to look between Cassian’s crowded screen and his own, mostly empty, chat window.  “Acknowledged,” Kay said into the comm when Cassian hit the “send” button. “Encrypting the message. Standby. Message sent.”

Bodhi’s own screen flashed with a new message, and he shifted uncomfortably, because it looked like Lena Tatham was going to make things even easier than anticipated for him.

 

**L. Tatham [1015]: so how is work?**

 

**T. Wahli [unsent]: oh busy. I’ve been working on**

 

Bodhi swallowed, and bit his lip, glancing at Cassian’s focused face, and resisted the urge to ask for help. He could handle this. It was just, just making sure the lady – the target – stayed on track. Paid attention to him. She didn’t really have to like him. She probably didn’t (Kay had given him an extensive run down on Lena Tatham’s “type” according to her social media and Bodhi…did not fit it. To say the least.)

 

**T. Wahli [1017]: oh busy. I’ve been working on that project I told you about at the coffee shop**

**L. Tatham [1018]: really? wow! so exciting!**

 

“It’s government finances,” Bodhi said under his breath. “Nobody thinks that’s exciting.”

“They do if they think there’s something for them in it,” Cassian said absently, and Bodhi winced, because he hadn’t realized Cassian was listening. Of course he was listening – what was a few complex tasks all at once in multiple languages to someone like Cassian? Meanwhile, Bodhi was racking his brains trying to come up with small talk that wouldn’t utterly bore someone over a text chat.

“We’re in,” Jyn said, and there was a loud clanking noise, like a vault door rolling open.

 

**L. Tatham [1019]: hey, want to meet up this evening and chat? it’s so nice talking to you!**

 

Bodhi’s heart rate spiked – another face to face meeting?

 

**T. Wahli [unsent]: sorry I think I have a meeting but maybe**

 

“Found them,” Baze growled in his ear, and over the comm Bodhi could suddenly pick out the thin sound of a child sobbing.

“How many,” Cassian asked softly. Nearby, Chirrut’s head was bowed, although the oblivious Julan was leaning forward, watching the holofeed with no idea what his ‘campaign manager’ was actually listening to.

“Forty-six,” Jyn snarled, and the crying sound grew louder as she moved closer to the source. “Is our transport inbound?”

“I want Mommy,” a child’s voice whimpered softly, and Jyn hummed something gentle and wordless to her.

“Five minutes,” Kay replied.

“Tell them to move faster. It stinks in here.”

Baze’s repeater cannon spooled up again. “Incoming.”

“Jyn,” Cassian breathed, and Bodhi cast a startled look around them, relieved to see that no one was close enough to hear Cassian’s breach of name protocol.

“It’s okay,” Jyn said in that same soft, comforting tone, and Bodhi wasn’t sure if she was talking to Cassian or the child. _Children_ , he corrected himself. _Probably_. “It’s okay. We’ll handle it. Everything’s okay.” A soft _snickt_ told Bodhi that she had drawn her truncheon.

“Transport arriving in three minutes,” Kay said.

“We can hold,” Baze replied, and then his cannon thundered in their ears.

Bodhi looked back down at his chat window, and erased his unsent message.

“I am one with the Force,” Chirrut said suddenly over the earpiece, and Julan jumped and turned to look at him in astonishment. “And the Force is with me,” Chirrut finished serenely, unruffled by Julan’s stare. In Bodhi’s ear, the repeater cannon went silent, replaced by what sounded like the shouts of several angry men and the deadly silence of an angrier Jyn Erso.

“That’s nice,” Julan Vosh said slowly, still looking at Chirrut with an uncertain expression. He glanced over his shoulder at Bodhi, but all Bodhi could manage was a weak smile and a shrug before he turned to fuss busily with his datapad. At his side, Cassian stared at his datapad with the blank, bored look of a man absorbed in a dull task, but his fingers were frozen over the screen, heedless of the multiple blinking windows and scrolling messages.

The shouts tapered off slowly, and then there was nothing but the sound of someone panting with effort, in and out. “Clear,” Jyn said at last, and Bodhi exhaled the same time that Cassian inhaled.

“Kay, our Bothan friend and I are almost set,” Cassian said in a calm tone, his fingers flying on the screen as if he had never paused. “Will you be done with your part in time?”

“Of course,” Kay replied with a distinct snit in his voice that made Bodhi wince. “Why does no one ever ask if Jyn will have her slaver beatings done in time?”

“For the record,” Jyn said with just a hint of smugness, “I do.”

Baze sighed. “Transport sighted.”

A rumble in the background of their comms temporarily sent a wave of static through Bodhi’s earpiece, and then a new voice called out. “Good morning! Did someone call for delivery?” The new voice laughed brightly. “Hey, Sarge, how's it hanging? The authorization codes were for your partner, but I can't say I'm surprised to see you instead. I'm guessing that cranky anti-social jerk is up in a perch somewhere watching through the scope?”

"I wish," Cassian grumbled.

“Hello, Bey,” Jyn said distantly, though there was the hint of warmth that she sometimes used on people she liked outside of the Rogue team.

“So what’s on the docket?” Lieutenant Bey’s voice seemed to be coming mostly through Jyn’s earpiece, and there was the sound of her flight boots thumping across metal floors. Bodhi scratched his neck a little nervously – he was so used to people who walked quietly that the sound of footsteps on the comm was a little unnerving. “I won’t lie,” Bey said matter-of-factly, “I’m hoping it’s worth the fuel to get me out here, because otherwise Command is going have all our heads for…” she trailed off suddenly as the sound of a whimpering child filtered back into the earpiece.

 “Forty-six former slaves,” Jyn told her flatly. “You got a med kit onboard?”

“Yeah,” Bey said after a moment, all laughter gone from her voice. “But I’ll need to head for a medical facility, looks like.”

“Tell her to go to Charros IV,” Cassian murmured. “Kay will send her the coordinates to a base we have there. It’s under a lake, and resources are limited, but last I heard, they had some social workers, and a functional medical ward.”

Jyn relayed the information to Bey, who didn’t respond in any way Bodhi could hear, but a few moments later, he could hear her voice retreating away from Jyn, calling for the newly-freed slaves to follow her onboard her transport.

“We’ll see them shipped off, then burn down the building,” Jyn said in a toneless voice. “No evidence, but a warning.”

"Do it," Cassian told her shortly. "And regroup at the conference center."

"Don't forget your disguise," Kay reminded Jyn. "Your selection of appropriate Nakadian wear has been delivered to the ship."

"Right," Jyn said with a distinct note of distaste. "Sundresses."

Bodhi sighed and lifted his datapad.

 

**T. Wahli [1032]: I’d love to meet. if you don’t mind me complaining about my work**

 

**L. Tatham [1033]: oh no problem. you can tell me all about it, I’d love to hear it!**

 

“Yeah,” Bodhi said, and sent a time to meet her at the coffee shop again. “I’m sure you would. Tatham’s still on the hook,” he said in a slightly louder voice over the comm.

“Well done,” Cassian said again, but there was no trace of humor in it now, only a resigned sort of understanding.

“That’s the slave operation kneecapped, then,” Jyn said in a tone that echoed Cassian’s. “Once the headquarters is burned, Derrosk will lose the branch operations too. He’s already becoming known as a bad investment.”

“The smugglers are spreading the word,” Baze grunted.

“Derrosk’s financial support has now been reduced by thirty-eight percent,” Kay said, his voice crackling slightly with static and his heavy footsteps clanking in the background. Bodhi wondered again where in the ship he actually was. “The next phase of the plan is prepped for transmission at your command."

Chirrut cleared his throat. “Now is the time,” he announced. Julan Vosh turned to look at him warily, probably anticipating more sudden religion. Instead, all Chirrut did was smile sweetly into the silence. “The time,” he explained cheerfully, “to stir up a little controversy for Ambassador Tichinde Bonu.”

“Acknowledged,” Kay said. “Holofeed is transmitting.”

“Controversy?” Vosh asked, and despite the faint sounds of weary people shuffling onto a ship, Bodhi almost laughed as he glanced up at the holofeed over Vosh’s head. A flashing BREAKING NEWS banner was already scrolling through the middle of the screen, and then, suddenly, there was Baze’s grumpy face. He was wearing thick glasses and had his wiry hair pulled into a poorly-tamed knot, and in the worn-down casual plaid shirt and baggy old trousers he wore, he looked more like a disgruntled mountain hiker than a rebel soldier.

“That won’t work,” Vosh was saying to Chirrut, turned away from the screen and heedless of the drama about to unfold in the pre-taped segment. “Everyone already knows the Governor’s pet ambassador is corrupt. No one’s going to care about money laundering or embezzlement.”

“No, no,” Chirrut waved a hand airily, and on the holoscreen, the serious-looking reporter held her microphone out to Baze’s stoic face. “Worse than money, my young friend. We must defang our opponent’s best attack dog, or he will savage you in the debates.”

“Worse than money?” Vosh looked taken aback. “What, like sex?” he stuttered slightly on the word and glanced around, flushing a little, as if he’d said something taboo.

“Repressed,” Baze muttered, and Jyn hummed again, low and amused. Bodhi sighed as Cassian’s eyes slid closed for a brief moment at the sound, then he pointedly looked away from the captain. Some things he just did not need to know about his friends.

“Oh no,” Chirrut told Vosh, his grin widening. “Much more damaging than that.”

“What’s worse than money or sex scandals?”

“Turn up the sound,” Chirrut gestured at the holofeed, and Vosh complied. The newscaster’s voice filled the room suddenly.

“ – Warwick Garwood, a Naboo animal rights activist, joins us today with evidence of a shocking accusation against Ambassador Bonu. Mister Garwood?”

“Porg fighting,” Baze said, and then slowly lifted his big hands. The newscaster gasped in delight at the two sets of giant, liquid dark eyes that peered from between his thick fingers.

“So you contend that Ambassador Bonu has been forcing porgs to fight to the death in the courtyard of the Governor’s mansion?”

“Yes,” Baze replied soberly, holding out the porgs so the camera could get a loving close up. Tiny peeps filled the audio for a few seconds before Baze continued. “Even pups as young as this, forced to fight to the death for entertainment.”

“Oh, poor babies,” the newscaster cooed, patting one of the little fluffballs with her fingertips. “Wait, was the _Governor_ present at the time of these fights?”

Baze gave her a serious look, the little porgs peeking around his knuckles and flapping their fuzzy little wings. “I never saw the governor in person, ma’am. But I do know that the fights happened on his estate, while he was officially signed in for office hours.”

The newscaster made more noises of distress before she signed off, and Chirrut reached out with his cane and slid the dial on the holofeed down.

“Should have joined one of those traveling show troops,” Jyn said in the earpiece, a laugh carefully hidden in her voice. “You’re a natural.”

Baze grunted.

“Poor little things,” Chirrut said soberly.

Bodhi closed his chat window and called up the holonet monitoring program that Kay had installed on the datapad. "Looks like 'porg fights' is already trending across the system," he called. "A petition to remove Tichinde Bonu from office is already up on - oh, no, wait, there's two now. And over thirty thousand signatures on the first."

Vosh stared at Chirrut, who tapped his cane but otherwise did not react. Vosh swiveled in his chair to look next at Bodhi, who avoided his eyes, and finally Cassian, who looked up coolly, unimpressed. “I think I hate you,” Vosh said in a stunned voice, though whether he was addressing one of them specifically, or the room at large, Bodhi wasn’t sure.

“Don’t worry, Mister Vosh,” Chirrut said comfortably, crossing one leg over the other and settling back into his chair. “All is as the Force will it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: One of my fighter pilot buddies, a 6’2”, 280 lb dude (callsign “Sparkles”) has a life-sized stuffed Porg perched on his gear locker. He claims it was a gift from his daughter and he would be disappointing her if he didn’t keep it at work, but he won’t walk to the plane without petting it, and when someone annoys him, he stuffs it into their helmet. A few days ago, I stole one of his pens (borrowed, I _borrowed_ a pen) and he followed me around for like an hour with it squawking “Pedals! Pedals, give me the pen! Where’s the pen, Pedals? Pedals! Pen!” So if you’re wondering why I keep putting porgs into everything as if they are constantly hovering in my subconscious mind, this is why. (No, I did not seek revenge. The glittery pink wrapping paper that mysteriously covered his entire gear locker and every piece of flight gear inside it was a happy and totally unrelated coincidence.)
> 
> I really do think courage comes in all different shapes and forms, and I'm trying to show that Bodhi's is not the same as Jyn's, or Cassian's, or anyone else's really. Hopefully that is coming across.


	7. age of the geek, baby

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Governor's Palace, Conference Room, Final Debate Night]

Chirrut was busy plucking invisible lint from Julan Vosh’s jacket when Bodhi made his way backstage. To the left of the former Guardian and the would-be political leader, Jyn was standing in a rigid military stance that was drastically at odds with her flowery sundress. Just over the former guerrilla soldier’s shoulder, the rebel spy she loved leaned against the wall with a datapad loosely in one hand, his face turned towards the screen but his eyes flicking from door to window to Jyn to the stage just beyond them all. Both of them glanced up at Bodhi as he walked up, nodded briefly, then went back to their wary vigils.

Sometimes, Bodhi thought, he really could not believe the path his life had somehow wandered down.

Then he shook himself and hurried to Cassian’s side. “Kay says he got into the system, you know, no problem. The broadcast is lined up,” he said quietly, frowning at Jyn as she turned her head slightly to watch him from the corner of her eye. “We’re good to go.”

Cassian nodded and tapped at his datapad. “Good.”

“So listen to each question carefully,” Chirrut said to Vosh, now patting vaguely at his gelled hair. “Then pause before you answer, to show that you are thoughtful.”

“Derrosk is going to eat me alive out there,” Vosh replied in a wobbly tone. “He’s done this before, and he won. He owns the broadcast station. They’ve already given him the questions!”

“Hey,” Bodhi said over the sounds of Chirrut cheerfully hushing the politician. He reached over and poked Jyn in the shoulder, prompting her to turn her head a little further, so that he could see half of her face. “Lighten up,” Bodhi tried his best to smile at her. “You’re not his bodyguard, remember?”

Jyn’s one visible eye narrowed.

“He’s right,” Cassian murmured, glancing up only briefly at her before letting his gaze shift back to the stage, across which they could just see Derrosk and his prep team waiting to walk out from the other wing. “You’re his betrothed. Look happy for him.”

Jyn’s jaw tightened, but she reluctantly dropped her hands from behind her back and relaxed her stance. Bodhi gave her a thumbs up, and Cassian dropped his chin slightly, his eyes dark over the top of the datapad. Bodhi wondered just how sour “betrothed” had sat on his tongue.

“I never meant to get this far,” Vosh was saying in the background, and Jyn turned to look at him as Bodhi took the opportunity to scan Cassian’s face as discreetly as possible. The captain looked…blanker than usual tonight. Maybe it was just the stress of the big debate about to happen on the stage. Maybe the complexity of the operation was starting to wear on him – Cassian had at least three different screens open on his datapad, none of them in Basic. Whatever was bothering him, he had his best Spy Face on, and Bodhi could no more read Cassian’s emotional cues than he could sprout tentacles and comb through his thoughts like –

Oops. Bodhi shook his head sharply to knock away the sensation of slick, gripping tentacles from his mind; this was not the cave, he was not in chains, and they definitely did not have time for him to get all…muddled up. Not tonight. At least two major turns in their plan against Derrosk were happening tonight, one of them in roughly twenty minutes. He needed to be present, and not buried in his own head. Something could happen, Jyn and Cassian and Chirrut might need him.

“But you have made it here,” Chirrut admonished Vosh, and Bodhi forced himself to focus on that conversation, forced himself to be apart of the operation as it happened. “Now, when you speak to the people, always end with an invitation.” Chirrut held out his hand in a broad gesture, palm up. “Give them a choice, and make one of those choices an easy _yes._ Much of politics is about trust, is it not? Offer them your trust, and ask for it in return. Call to their better natures, and then,” he smiled, stretched his hand out, “call them to you.”

Vosh halfheartedly mimicked Chirrut’s gesture, then shook his head. “Comandante Erollisi should be up here,” he said wretchedly. Bodhi grimaced, because honestly it sounded like Vosh had already consigned Erollisi to the graveyard and that was just…sad. People on Nakadia were just so used to their heroes vanishing, and never coming back.

“There were a lot of people in that conference room when we showed up,” Jyn said abruptly. Vosh jumped a little and turned to look at her, his face turning from woeful to wondering as Jyn stepped close and ran her fingers briskly through his hair, correcting the mess Chirrut had made of it earlier. “You going to let them down?” She looked up at him, flashed him a brief smile, and held out her hand gently. “Or are you going to be the governor they believe you can be?”

“Yes, of course I want to - ” Vosh reached out and took her hand – and then glanced down in surprise. “Oh.” He blinked, and then laughed quietly. “I, uh, see.”

“Well done,” Chirrut said approvingly, and patted Jyn and Julan’s linked hands.

“Go on,” Jyn’s grin eased back into a soft half-smile. “We’ll be here.”

“Thank you, dear,” Vosh paused, then carefully lifted Jyn’s hand. Bodhi saw her shoulders tense, but she let him kiss the back of her knuckles briefly. “You have been a wonderful help,” the man said in a sincere tone, “My people and I owe you so much.”

“Time to go,” Chirrut said, head tilted toward the moderator for the debate, who had just walked into the center of the stage and boomed out a greeting to the crowd.

“Right.” Vosh’s neck was bright red, but he cleared his throat and straightened his shoulders, and strode out onto the stage like a man who knew exactly what he was doing.

“I would like it noted,” Chirrut commented a touch loudly, “that I have been a _wonderful help_ , myself. And yet, not a single kiss for me,” he sighed and lifted one hand. Jyn snorted, then reached out and looped her arm through his.

“Next time,” she promised with a wry smile, and Chirrut patted her elbow and led her close to the curtains, so they could listen to Vosh’s debate performance.

“Stop staring at me, Taleed,” Cassian murmured, his eyes locked on the datapad.

Bodhi coughed to cover the little noise of surprise he almost made. “I _wasn’t,_ ” he whispered back a little too defensively. “Just, um,” he glanced from Jyn to Chirrut, but they were both focused towards the stage, watching Vosh take the stand next to Derrosk. The Imperial Governor looked particularly clean and sharply dressed tonight, Bodhi noted with some disgust and alarm. “It’s just, I’m wondering…are you…” Bodhi bit his lip, because it really wasn’t his place to ask and normally he _never_ would have. Jyn could pretend affection in short bursts when she needed to, and Bodhi had seen her around Cassian long enough now to know the difference between the pretend and the real. But then, the other day when she’d decided to play the pretty girlfriend, Cassian had said that weird thing about being jealous…

“I’m fine,” Cassian answered the question Bodhi hadn’t quite asked. He tucked his datapad away suddenly and shoved himself upright, his hands in his pockets and his face oddly shadowed in the dim lights of the backstage. For a long moment, neither of them spoke, listening to the announcer introduce Julan Vosh and Governor Rogen Derrosk to the sea of flashing holorecorders and buzzing reporters. Across from the stage, facing the candidates, two huge holoscreens came to life, playing the live coverage of the debate. (For now, at least.)

“I know what I am,” Cassian said suddenly under the noise of the crowd and the announcer. “I know what I have to offer, and it isn’t - ” he made a sharp gesture towards Jyn, “ _that_. I’ve made my peace with it.”

Bodhi looked from Cassian’s extra-blank face to Jyn’s back. “Uh…what’s, um,” he dropped his voice in a terrible imitation of Cassian’s, scowling at the brief flash of humor in his friend’s face, “ _that?_ ”

“Sundresses,” Cassian replied almost absently, the flash of humor snuffed like a candle, his mind now clearly somewhere else entirely. “Pet names. Normalcy.”

Bodhi shifted his weight and glanced towards the edge of the curtains, where Jyn and Chirrut huddled close and watched Julan Vosh like mother siffa-hawks watching their chick. But no one had their comm earbuds in tonight – not with all the media scanners set up in the broadcast stage, not when there was so high a chance of comm interception – so no one else heard what Cassian was saying but Bodhi, nor the terrible empty tone he said it in. Bodhi’s chest squeezed a little, because he was not the person to help, not really, not like this, he needed Chirrut or Baze or even Jyn ( _especially_ Jyn) – but it was just him and he had a feeling that if he tried to bring it up later, Cassian would somehow brush it off or even make a joke and no one would _know_ …

“She probably doesn’t want that,” Bodhi said at last, which was stupid, but that was all he had. “I mean…it’s Jyn. She likes…” Bodhi flapped a hand uselessly in the air; Jyn liked being armed, she liked safe places to sleep and tea and Cassian and she didn’t call people by pet names and honestly, what was Cassian even talking about, with this “normalcy” thing? Since when had either he or Jyn cared about being “normal” when half the time that meant being a complacent citizen of an Empire that destroyed planets just to show off? But none of those words could form properly in Bodhi’s mouth, all he had was, “Normal is just what a person does.”

Cassian shook his head, because Bodhi was saying it wrong, and he sighed hard. But before he could try again, Cassian snapped his datapad open again and said in a crisp voice, “Five minutes until Phase Two.”

“Cassian,” Bodhi tried again, because it was important, but Cassian turned a sharp eye towards him and he swallowed as he realized he’d broken name-protocol on mission. “Sorry,” he whispered; his stupid tongue and his stupid tendency to twist it up and muck up the operation and maybe even put Cassian at risk because he was busy trying to be sentimental when they were in a fight to save a lot of people –

“Hey,” Cassian’s hand was heavy and warm on his shoulder. “It’s fine. It’s fine. No one’s around. You did not break anything. Breathe.”

Bodhi sucked in a great gasp of air, then winced at the ridiculous, wheezy sound. Ahead of them, Chirrut had turned his head, though Bodhi couldn’t tell if he was paying attention to the show on the stage or the one in the back. But it reminded Bodhi of the long hours sitting with Chirrut in the quietest places of whatever base they were in, or sitting in the back of their ship during the long, muted hours in hyperspace. _Wholeness is not without jagged edges,_ Chirrut had made him say, many times, even when it felt embarrassing or silly _. I am many pieces, but the pieces are all of me_.

“Breathe,” Cassian said again, and the cold tentacles receded from Bodhi’s edges, his vision clearing again. _I am many pieces, but the pieces are all of me_.

“Okay,” Bodhi said slowly, blinking. “I’m okay. Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Cassian repeated, both his voice and his grip firm. “Come, let’s go watch our man working.” He steered Bodhi by the shoulder gently towards Jyn and Chirrut, who both slid aside neatly to make room.

“Can you believe that question?” Jyn demanded in a low, irritated voice as the moderator asked Derrosk something about building on the success of his first term. “Another straight punch.” She shook her head, her arm knocking into Bodhi’s companionably. “They asked Julan for the name and credentials of Coruscant’s lead financial minister.”

“Derrosk owns the broadcast company,” Chirrut reminded her, though his face was turned towards Bodhi.

“It’s rigged,” Bodhi agreed softly, nodding to Chirrut, who couldn’t see it and shouldn’t have nodded back (Bodhi had long given up counting all the things that Chirrut shouldn’t be able to do but did anyway; Baze said that believing in Chirrut was a good first step.)

Cassian let go of Bodhi shoulder and moved to stand on Jyn’s other side. “Wait for it,” he said quietly, and Bodhi noticed with mixed concern and understanding that Cassian stood a solid five centimeters from Jyn, maybe more. It looked wrong to Bodhi, as did Jyn’s determined refusal to look over at him…but then, there were a lot of holocameras around, and Nomi Williams was engaged.

This op was really starting to suck.

“My _Soul of Nakadia_ campaign has been a real boon for economic development,” Derrosk was saying on the stage, a charming smile on his face, the perfectly rigged lighting making it easy for the cameras to focus on the clear color of his eyes and his defined cheekbones. “That’s perhaps a little bit of a brag on my part, but why shouldn’t we brag about our planet? The standard of living on Nakadia is the highest in the sector, and for good reason.”

“I really hate him,” Bodhi muttered. Jyn bumped his arm with hers again.

“Phase Two in five, four,” Cassian said quietly, and Bodhi’s eyes flicked from Derrosk’s easy smile to the large holoscreens facing the candidates. “Three, two,” Cassian’s voice was hard, his eyes flat. “One.”

The screens flickered, Derrosk and Vosh’s images vanishing from both. No one in the audience noticed, but both candidates suddenly had an unimpeded view of the local news channels, streaming the top stories of the day. Vosh blinked, confused, and then clearly set aside the unexpected but ultimately unimportant shift.

Derrosk, on the other hand…

Chirrut elbowed Bodhi in the side a touch impatiently. “Can he see it?”

“He sees it,” Bodhi cleared his throat and tried not to smile.

“We have increased tourism by twenty-two percent in the last…” Derrosk’s smile no longer looked charming, but rather strained around the edges, his knuckles turning white as he gripped the edges of his podium.

EXPLOSIONS ROCK THE CITY, the headline screamed, as the moderately attractive holonewscaster pointed seriously at the footage of the burning warehouses in apparently random locations. UNKNOWN CONNECTION IN SERIAL BOMBINGS!

“Subtitles,” Jyn murmured, and Cassian raised his datapad. A moment later, closed captions appeared under the headlines.

_…no reported causalities, but thousands of credits’ worth of property damage_ , the holocaster told the camera, shaking his head.

“Governor Derrosk, have you finished with your response?” The moderator asked pointedly, and Derrosk’s smile twisted around the corners, suddenly looking a little more like a sneer.

“Twenty-two percent increase in tourism,” he repeated, and a low murmur ran through the crowd at his sudden tension. “As a direct result of my outreach initiative and good connections with - ”

  _We are still standing by,_ the holocaster was saying on screen _, to find out what cargo was stored in these warehouses, but preliminary investigations have exposed that all the listed owners are, in fact, shell companies. Which brings up an intriguing question…_

Jyn turned her head to speak to Cassian, and Bodhi thought it was a good thing that all the holorecorders were firmly on Derrosk, cataloging his odd behavior, and not noting how close Vosh’s beloved leaned her head to Vosh’s manager. “Did he get all of the smuggler caches?”

“All is as the Force wills,” Chirrut said placidly.

“I think that means yes,” Bodhi tried to joke.

“And that you shouldn’t ask, ah,” Cassian glanced at Bodhi, his mouth quirking into a small smile as he deliberately skipped over Baze’s name, “ _our colleague_ that question directly.”

_We will be following this story to it’s conclusion,_ the holocaster promised on the giant screens, and Derrosk’s eyes narrowed, and (oh, shit) flicked past Vosh to the dim backstage where Bodhi’s team huddled. Then he pointedly turned back to the holorecorders and flashed a wide, compelling grin, as if the last five minutes had never happened.

But the damage was done – not only was Derrosk’s smuggling ring thoroughly destroyed now (plus a few warehouses that had been waystations for the now-scattered slave ring), but Derrosk had, even if only for a moment, shown some of his true colors to the galaxy. Already Bodhi could hear unsettled muttering coming from the audience, and more than a few reporters in the audience were leaning towards one another, comparing notes, tapping their holorecorders and shooting guarded looks up at the stage.

More important even than the enemy’s self-sabotage, Vosh had carried on with his less charismatic but still admirable speeches and careful answers, and compared to Derrosk’s barely-concealed snarl, he looked…well, much better.

“Tell me, my fellow Nakadians,” Vosh called out in a clear voice as he neared the end of his prepared closing remarks, “do you want to continue to live in the past with Governor Derrosk, or,” he paused only briefly, then smiled, and held his hand out to the audience, to the holorecorders, to the world, “do you want to build a better future for our children?”

The audience cheered, the holoscreens above their heads abruptly switching back to the live coverage of the debate, both of them filled with Julan Vosh’s smile and outstretched hand.

“An excellent pupil,” Chirrut said serenely over the resounding applause, “is a credit to his instructor.”

Bodhi choked on a laugh. “Right. Of course. You, uh, you taught him everything he, he knows.”

Jyn hummed in amusement, and then she was striding forward, the flowery dress swishing around her. Vosh was holding out his hand to her, smiling brightly and flushed a little with his success, and between one step and the next Jyn’s face went from her normal wary quiet to bright, cheerful, supportive. She moved to Vosh’s side and let him take her hand again, even waved a little at the cameras, tilting her head and posing for the flashing holorecorders. Kay would be pleased to have so many more news hits to apply to Nomi William’s holonet profile. Bodhi hoped Kay was still adjusting Jyn’s images just enough to confuse Imperial facial scans. Assuming that the Empire was still looking for Jyn Erso, a woman that Rebel Intel claimed had died almost a full standard year ago.

Bodhi sighed. “I will be so glad,” he said fervently, watching Jyn’s fixed smile turn from the reporters to Vosh as she led her fake fiancé back to the wings of the stage, “when this election is over.”

“You shouldn’t be," Cassian said, his face and voice flat again as he watched the smiling, waving couple strolling towards them. He shifted his weight and nodded over Jyn’s shoulder, where Derrosk was walking with calm purpose behind them, headed straight for the team. “The election is the only reason Derrosk is allowing us to live. Too much bad press if we all suddenly die right now.”

“An unfortunate truth,” Chirrut agreed calmly, as if his words weren’t wriggling in Bodhi’s guts like cold tentacles. “When this election is over, he will attempt to kill us.”

“Did you see how I did?” Vosh almost shouted in joy when he and Jyn came up to them, and then he coughed sheepishly as Jyn bit her lip and Bodhi swallowed a chuckle. “I mean, you didn’t, I suppose, but, um…”

“You did well,” Chirrut reached out and patted him on the shoulder. “A strong finish.”

“Ah, Vosh, allow me to congratulate you,” Derrosk cut in genially, and Vosh jumped and would have spun to face his opponent if Jyn hadn’t gripped his arm and turned him much more slowly.

“Oh, Governor, um, thank you,” Vosh stumbled, and hastily took Derrosk’s outstretched hand for a perfunctory shake. “And you, sir. You also did well tonight. A real difficult challenge out there.”

“Yes, surprisingly complex,” Derrosk nodded. His gaze shifted from Vosh to Cassian, and his smile was pleasant as a campaigning politician but his eyes cold as an angry wampa. “I must admit I did not expect this level of opposition.” He turned back to Vosh abruptly. “No offense, of course, my friend.”

“No, no, of course,” Vosh replied glibly, but his own smile was a little more guarded now, his eyes flitting between Derrosk’s polished mask and Cassian’s blank one.

“And this must be your campaign team,” Derrosk went on, sweeping them all with a superficially indifferent glance. His eyes lingered, however, on Jyn. To Bodhi’s surprise, Jyn cocked her head to the side, brightened her smile, and actually stuck her hand out towards Derrosk.

“Well, not me,” she said with a little laugh that Bodhi had never heard come out of her mouth before. “I’m just here to cheer for him. Nomi Williams. It’s just an honor to meet you, sir.”

“A pleasure to meet another Coruscanti native,” Derrosk replied smoothly, taking her hand and shaking it. Without warning, he stepped close and lifted her hand, pressing it to his mouth and smiling at her with his charm on full blast. Jyn froze, her eyes wide and her smile faltering. “And don’t sell yourself short, Miss Williams,” Derrosk said easily. “You are a vital piece of this campaign. The team would surely suffer without you.”

A slight movement in the corner of Bodhi’s eye, Cassian’s hand jerking up towards his belt, where his holster normally hung, and then dropping quickly back down again.

If Derrosk saw it, he gave no indication, still holding Jyn’s hand up close to his mouth. Close, Bodhi thought irrationally, to his teeth.

“I certainly would,” Vosh said brightly into the small silence, and then looped an arm around Jyn’s shoulders and pulled her close, conveniently tugging Jyn’s hand from Derrosk’s grip. Not as dense as he appeared sometimes, Julan Vosh, even if he had no idea what was really going on between Derrosk and the woman he knew as Nomi.

“Well, I had better let you all get on with your evening. So much to do before the voting begins in two days!” Derrosk flipped a lazy salute at Vosh, and then turned and nodded genially at Cassian. “You know,” he said, looking Cassian directly in the eye and smiling politely, “I really am looking forward to the end of this election.”

Cassian nodded coolly, as unruffled as any second-tier campaign worker might be at such a seemingly empty statement, and stepped aside to let the governor pass.

“Come, my friend,” Chirrut slapped a hand on Vosh’s back. “We should head back to the conference center. The rest of your team will be looking forward to celebrating.”

“Right,” Vosh said slowly, watching Derrosk disappear around the far corner. Then he turned to Jyn and held his arm up. “Shall we?”

“If I might have a moment, Miss Williams?” Cassian said quietly, his datapad open and his fingers flying busily across the screen.

“I’ll be right behind you,” Jyn told Vosh, crossing to stand in front of Cassian.

“You too, Mister Wahli,” Cassian said easily, still not looking up.

They waited a beat, letting Chirrut lead Vosh out toward the shuttle waiting to take them back to the conference hall, and then Cassian glanced at Jyn, his face still shuttered. “Done?”

In answer, Jyn reached into her skirt pocket and pulled out her comm, slipping it into her ear and raising an eyebrow at Cassian. Bodhi scrambled to plug his own comm in, and turned it on just in time to hear Derrosk’s voice crackling through the bug Jyn had planted on his suit.

“ – don’t know how they did it,” Derrosk was growling into his own personal comm. A faint, harsh voice buzzed, the other person on the end of the call clearly upset. “I _will_ be holding them responsible,” Derrosk snapped, cutting the other voice off. “In the meantime, we will restructure the – no, of course I have not sold you out, you cretin, I am – ” Derrosk stopped, and Bodhi could practically hear him grinding his teeth over the comm. Across from him, Cassian’s face had a grim sort of satisfaction around the edges, and Jyn was smirking.

“I will double the payment this month,” Derrosk said sharply. “And this situation will never repeat. Do you agree to the terms? Good.” And then the comm crackled again as he hung up.

Cassian held up one finger, warning the others to stay silent, and Derrosk’s comm buzzed again, patching through a call. Jyn pointed to Cassian’s screen, which was currently covered in Bothan script. Cassian nodded to her, his mouth curving into a small smile as she grinned in approval at him.

“This is Rogan Derrosk, account twelve-fifteen-trill-forn-seven-besh. I need to transfer funds immediately.”

A cool voice spoke in Bothan, a distant echo over Derrosk’s comm, but Cassian turned the speaker on his datapad up slightly and Bodhi didn’t have any problem making out the words.

“Immediately,” Derrosk stressed as the Bothan blandly asked him to wait for a representative to come on the line. A pause, a click, the impatient sound of Derrosk tapping something on the comm, and then…

“Greetings, Governor Derrosk, and thank you for calling Bothawui Intergalactic Bank,” a smooth Bothan voice said over Cassian’s datapad speaker (and, presumably, in Derrosk’s ear). “How may I be of service to you?”

“As I _said_ , I need funds transferred, _immediately._ Your establishment does know the meaning of ‘immediately,’ yes?”

“Of course, sir, and I apologize for the delay,” the Bothan replied with the serenity of a being long accustomed to working customer service for the wealthy. “Voice scans have confirmed your identity, could I please have your verbal passkey?”

“ _These passions which yet survive on even these lifeless things_ ,” Derrosk recited coldly. Jyn elbowed Bodhi pointedly, and he rolled his eyes – yes, yes, she had sliced into Derrosk’s personal console days ago and found that phrase in several of the governor’s documents, a fragment from an old Coruscanti poem about powerful men, and Jyn had guessed that the Imperial used it as a passkey somewhere. (“He probably tells himself he’s using it ironically,” she had sneered, and Bodhi had silently agreed.)

“I’m sorry, sir,” the Bothan said sweetly, “But there seems to be a problem.”

“What?” The impatient edge in Derrosk’s voice was practically a razor now. “What problem? I am a prime-tier client of your bank, my accounts do not have _problems.”_

“Unfortunately, they do, sir,” the Bothan was practically dripping with syrup now, her gravelly voice was so sweet and kind. “When the Imperial Security Bureau has frozen them for investigation.”

There was a long, long pause.

Bodhi bit his lip. Jyn drew closer to Cassian, neither of them looking away from the datapad in Cassian’s hand.

This was, so far, their most ambitious play in the game.

“The ISB,” Derrosk said softly. “And is there any indication why the ISB would have my accounts…under investigation?”

“Well, I’m not supposed to say, sir,” the Bothan sounded professionally apologetic again, but her voice dropped a degree in a conspiratorial murmur, “but it’s tagged as “possible treason.” You might want to be careful, sir.”

“Yes,” Derrosk replied slowly. “I shall.”

“Well, thank you for calling Bothawui Intergalactic Bank, and I do apologize for the inconvenience, sir. I hope everything works out for you, and this small matter is cleared up shortly. In the meantime, do you have a few minutes to answer a short survey? Your answers are confidential, and will help us improve our customer service in the future.”

Bodhi clamped a hand across his mouth to muffle a startled shout of laughter.

“No,” Derrosk snapped.

“No problem, thank you again, sir, and I hope that you have a nice day and/or time period appropriate to your current planetary schedule,” the Bothan chirped, and then the comm crackled and went dead.

Another brief pause, and then Derrosk swore, just a short, nasty phrase that the media would have eaten up and replayed across the holonet for days. From the look on Jyn's face, she was wishing they had been recording that part. Cassian just looked...pensive. He flipped the bug's self-destruction command on his datapad, rendering it useless and preventing Derrosk from back-tracing it to their team, and then tapped his thumb against the side of the datapad for a few moments, lost in thought.

“I can’t believe that worked,” Bodhi said at last, shaking his head. “We, we actually subverted his _Bothan_ accounts.”

“Why the surprise?” Jyn frowned at him. “We’re good, you know.”

“Well, yeah, but - ”

“She’s right,” Cassian interrupted, and tapped his screen. The Bothan script went blank.

A moment later, he clipped the datapad to his belt and gestured for Jyn to precede him. “Come on. Let’s go celebrate with Vosh. It’s been,” he paused, rested his hand on Jyn’s lower back as she moved around him, “a good night.”

“Two more days to go,” Bodhi murmured, and followed them both.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jyn uses the phrase “another straight punch” rather than “another softball”/”another easy questions” because she hasn’t played organized sports in her life, but she does know that a straight punch is easier to block or dodge than a hook or an uppercut.
> 
> This chapter wasn’t as funny, sorry. It will be, in retrospect, but you’re not in on all the jokes, just yet. (And anyway, Bodhi sometimes still has to deal with the after effects of his trauma, even at times when he’s really, really busy).
> 
> For those who forgot (because it’s been awhile since I posted on this story, sorry), the team broke into Derrosk’s pet smugglers’ computer system a few chapters back and stole their cache locations. Which Baze just blew up, all at once, during the debate. Fortunately, no one was injured. Just several million credits worth of property damage plus cargo loss. The smugglers were not, as you may have surmised, best pleased with this, and neither was Derrosk.
> 
> Derrosk's account was a combination of numbers and aurebesh letters.
> 
> Derrosk's passphrase is a bastardized line from the poem [Ozymandius](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46565/ozymandias), because Rogen Derrosk is exactly the kind of guy who would "ironically" use a poem warning about thinking too much of your own power and influence, all while secretly believing in the infallibility of his *own* power and influence.
> 
> For the record, Kay has been subtly altering all the new images of ‘Nomi Williams’ on the holonet, so that she’s recognizable to the naked eye, but scanning programs would struggle to match the face with any other records. The fact that Nomi is smiling in almost all those holonet images makes it even less likely that anyone will ever connect her to the sullen prisoner buried somewhere in the Imperial penal system.


End file.
